The Wrath Of The DDR Machine O' DOOM!
by Neassa
Summary: Sequel to 'You Never Know What Will Happen'. Epilogue now up!
1. It begins

Neassa: Well, so many people seemed to want the sequel that I decided to go against all my lazy principles and write one.

Readers: ((in shock))

Neassa: Aw, c'mon! It's not_ that _unheard of is it?

Readers: ((nod))

Neassa: Oh, c'mon!

* * *

**_BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP-!_**

**CRASH!**

**Bwoop... beep... bwoo...**...

"Valerie, you better not have thrown another alarm clock against your wall! That's the third one this week!"

I slowly opened my eyes and blinked a little bit. I looked at the new dent on my wall and the mangled heap that was once my alarm clock.

"'Course not, Mom! Why would you think something like that?" I yelled back as I managed to pry myself out of bed and stumble into the hall and the bathroom, I washed up a bit and went back to my room to get ready for the last school day before spring break.

I got dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt with an angry looking orange cat on the front on top of a thin-material, long-sleeved purple shirt. I slipped my feet into some worn out blue and white sandals that used to belong to my brother and grabbed a jacket as I headed to the refrigerator in the garage to grab a Fresca to get a jolt to help me wake up.

It had been several months since my adventures in Kingdom Hearts, even if most people would just brush it off to be some wacky dream. Probably one of the reasons I haven't convinced myself it was an extremely realistic dream was that the ever-stoic Hideo was still around.

That's right, his parents had fallen in love with this 'cozy town' and moved here. Boy was he mad when he found out. I guess he was wanting to get back home and forget what happened, but things just haven't been seeming to go his way lately, ne?

I gathered up my stuff and grabbed an oatmeal square on the way out of the house, yelling 'Goodbye!' to my mom as I went. I shivered as I got outside and tugged my favorite black jogging jacket(although I never actually jogged) around me tighter as I started the ten minute trudge to school.

As for Wil and Saft they moved back to their respective homes and states, we'd contact each other through email sometimes but, since we'd gotten back to the 'real' world, there wasn't much to talk about.

As for Rachel, when we tried to talk to her about Kingdom Hearts she laughed in our faces and called it 'a weird dream', since then she'd moved schools and become a prep, I had lost contact with her long ago.

I still had my friends though, Hideo of course, I didn't give the poor guy a choice besides, he couldn't bring out his shotguns and shoot me so I was a happy person, and then there was-

"Hello, friend!" Hug.

"Cough... hello, Ashley." I said to the girl who had just come up to me. She was pretty normal as people went, she was short with chest-length aburn hair with a slightly shorter length in front and brown eyes. She was wearing faded and worn blue-jeans (her favorite pair as she would have you know) with a seafoam-green T-shirt with a five-pointed white star on the front. Her accessories were a simple chain necklace with a small crystal as a charm, two simple silver ball earrings, along with a brown-banded, blue-faced watch on her left wrist and an assortment of colored bangles on her right. Her feet were clad in a pair of worn-out blue, yellow, white, and black tennis shoes.

"Just a warning, she had coffee today," said Hideo, coming from the same direction as Ashley, as they were next door neighbors. He also bore the tell-tale signs of one of Ashley's hugs. He adjusted the strap of his backpack. He looked a lot different compared to the way he looked in Kingdom Hearts. After seeing him in a trench coat with black wings and then seeing him in a plain T-shirt and jeans... there's really no comparison.

"Thanks for the late warning," I deadpanned. Yeah, we always greeted each other like that.

We walked to school, partaking in idle conversation now and then. The school day went by pretty fast, pretty soon we were walking back home.

"So who's house are we going to today?" I asked as we made our way back from school.

"Oh, oh! Let's go to your house and play DDR!" Ashley said pointing in the direction of my house.

I looked to Hideo for his input, he shrugged, "It's not a _bad_ idea."

I looked back to Ashley and sighed, "Okay let's go." We got to my house in no time, walked in, kicked off our shoes, dropped our stuff in the entry way, and looked around for any sign of intelligent life, but in my house that was quite a laugh, "Mom! I'm home!"

There was silence so I figured that she was running errands. I went into my room, leaving the others to their own devices in the living room, and changed into navy blue gym shorts and a black T-shirt that had what looked like duct tape on it and printed on the 'duct tape' was 'Duct Tape Is Like The Force, It Has A Light Side And A Dark Side, And It Holds The Universe Together.' so I could play DDR comfortably.

When I came back out Hideo was snickering softly and Ashley was holding a note, she held it out to me, "Look what I found on your refrigerator."

I took the note, confused. This is what it said:

_Dear, Valerie._

_We've taken a vacation to South Padre Island for spring break. We left you behind because, quite frankly, you've been _weird_ every since waking up from that coma and we would like a nice, calm, vacation. Besides you don't like the beach much anyways, do you?_

_Mom_

"You've gotta be kidding me!" I yelled while looking at the note in shock. Sure, I didn't like the beach, but still!

"The funniest thing is," said Hideo, trying to hold in snickers and failing miserably, "They didn't leave any money!"

"I know where my mom keeps her emergency money," I said, waving off the money issue.

"I call that convenient knowledge," said Ashley with a nod.

I grabbed a nearby throw pillow and screamed into it for about five minutes before collapsing on the couch, "I'm better now."

Hideo was still snickering in his dark little corner, "I'm so _happy_."

I thought I was gonna die of a heart attack when I heard Hideo say _that_.

_Actually, young warriors, this is a great opportunity._

"Ack! Who was that!" Ashley looked around frantically for where the sound of the disembodied voice was coming from, while Hideo and I recognized it immediately.

"Oh, no, not _you_!"

_And here I was thinking you'd be happy to hear me._

"You were dead wrong!"

_I can see that, thank you._

"Well what do you want _this time_?"

"What's going on?" Ashley was ignored.

_I need you to take care of something for me, well actually someone. Two someones._

"Eh?"

_There are two nobodies who I believe would be great allies; however, if they are not touched by the light they will remain in darkness._

"Eh?"

"WHAT'S GOING ON!"

Ashley was ignored again.

_If they don't meet some good guys and decide to secretly be on their side while still carrying out orders from the darkness, they'll be bad guys when they could be good guys._

"Oookkayyy..."

"So we need to meet two nobodies, become their friends and get them to be on our side?"

_Basically, yes._

"So which two nobodies are they?" asked Hideo, who had played and beaten KH 2 I had refused to do so until I beat CoM I was currently stuck on a really hard boss battle.

_Axel and Demyx._

Hideo's eyes bugged out of his head, "Wait, you're planning on taking the fire and water elementals, the two nobodies who apparently have the ability to show a large amount of emotion(or stupidity in Demyx's case) and a sense of humor. And making them meet the resident crazy and teaming them up? Are you trying to kill me! Think of the pranks they're gonna pull!"

"So I take it I'm gonna like Axel and Demyx?"

Ashley was turning purple from restrained anger at being ignored.

_Well... yeah. Good luck!_

"No wait! Don't do it-!" But it was too late. There was another white flash that the disembodied voice was apparently quite fond of and when it cleared there were two very confused nobodies standing in the middle of my living room floor.

One, who was dripping wet, was yelling at the other, not noticing his surroundings, about something like 'flooding 'The Castle That Never Was' so he could go surfing'.

"Yeah, wasn't it great?" remarked the other one.

They then noticed their surroundings and looked at us.

"Where are we?"

* * *

Neassa: I know I said I tried to fit a lot of OCs into the sequel, but when it came down to it, I realized that my brain would melt into a tiny puddle of goo and it would be a year between updates if I tried to fit all those OCs into this fic. I _might_ have some OCs in random cameos throughout the story, but other than that I'm not sure about it. Sorry, Haphazardous Inspiration if Ashley was too crazy, I couldn't help it! Crazy people are so fun to write! So, yeah. REVIEW PLEASE PEOPLE! IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT KEEPS ME WRITING! Okay, that's a lie, but still, REVIEW PLEASE! 


	2. Daizy's Debut!

Neassa: Hiya, peoples! Sorry it took so long to get this chap up. Did you know this story has 194 (and counting) hits and only 16 reviews? Not that I'm not grateful for the reviews I _did _get, mind you. But it _is_ rather surprising, is it not? Anyways, to answer some questions, I _did_ say I would _try_ to put people's OCs in, but htere were just to many and The stress was just too much! DON'T TRY TO MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN YOU! THE PRESSURE'S JUST TOO MUCH! WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS? ((collapses))

Hastuharu: ((pops out of nowhere)) Well, since the authoress has just had a mental break-down (a mystery...) I'll explain the rest. She wanted to put all the OCs (excluding the ones who tried to hog the storyline and the ones who wanted to have there own Keyblade (That's _Sora's_ job, people!).) in here, but have you ever tried to write multiple people at once like that? Unless you're FairyGodmoose (whose stories are _incredible_ by the way) I'd say not. So she chose the OCs that she liked best and the ones she thought she would have the most fun writing and put them in here. That's the story! No complaints!

Momiji: ((also pops out of nowhere)) On with the chap!

* * *

"Where are we?" The guy who asked that question was the only one I recognized out of the two. He had long bright red hair that was just as gravity-defying(or more so) as Sora's and it stuck out at all angles, but his was haphazardly slicked back. He had pale, light green eyes that stuck out because of his red hair. He was also sporting two triangle shaped tattoos beneath his eyes, "What did you do _now_, Demyx?" 

Yup, it was Axel. I knew him because you can't get very far in Chain of Memories _without_ knowing him.

"I didn't do anything, Axel! I swear!" The other guy, apparrently this one was 'Demyx'. He had an eye color vaguely resembling dark teal. And guess what else? This guy had a blonde mullet(sp?). I kid you not. This guy had a mullet. I was in the middle of wondering how he got his hair to stick up so straight when I realized something.

What was I going to do with them?

"My life is over," Hideo was sitting on one of the couches and you could positively see the anguish rolling off of him, "This disembodied voice wants me dead, I just know it. Couldn't whoever it is have just shot me? It would have been so much easier."

"Hey," Demyx walked up to Ashley without hesitation and pointed over at Hideo, "Is he just a little bit emo or is that just me?"

Ashley shrugged, seeming to have gotten over her angry rage from before, "The world may never know."

Axel turned to me, "Where are we? And who are you?" I guess he figured that I was the only one with a shred of sanity among the three of us.

"Oh, you're on a world that you've probably never heard of. Earth. I'm the Life-blade-bearer, shortened to LB for the sake of not getting togue-tied every two seconds. But my name's Valerie. You can shorten it to just about anything you like or just make up something new. It's too long to say all the time. And the guy who thinks the disembodied voice wants him dead is Hideo, one of the three warriors who were with me on our journey with Sora. The girl talking to Demyx is Ashley, she's a little crazy, and my partner in occaisionally torturing Hideo. We can't torture him too much. If we do he'll need therapy. Do you want some lemonade?" I had made my way to the kitchen by now and was pulling the makings of lemonade from the pantry.

When life gives you nobodies, make lemonade.

"Yay! Lemonade!" Demyx bounced, yes, _bounced_, into the kitchen, quickly followed by Ashley.

And that's how we wound up drinking lemonade with Demyx and Axel.

A half hour or so later, everyone was sitting in the living room, drinking lemonade and eating some lemon poppy-seed muffins that I had scavenged from the pantry. We had explained most everything to Axel, Demyx, and Ashley. Except that the disembodied voice wanted us to convert Axel and Demyx over to the light side of the Force. We didn't think they'd be too thrilled about that, besides, it wouldn't be easy. The dark side _does_ have cookies after all. ((A/N: I couldn't resist! I love Star Wars!))

"So, you're the girl with the Lifeblade, huh?" Axel said, taking another sip of his lemonade, "That's weird, Superior-"

"Who's 'Superior'?" asked Ashley.

"The leader of Orginization XIII. He makes us call him that. He's got a _major_ superiority complex." Demyx, who was sitting nextto Ashley, explained. They seemed to be getting along just fine.

"As I was saying," Axel continued, "He said you disappeared after the whole thing with Ansem and that you were probably dead. He didn't really say much about you all."

"Nice to know I established such a famous name for myself," I deadpanned.

"Yeah, eheheheh..." Axel rubbed to back of his head sheepishly.

There was a noise from behind and everyone turned as the door to the garage, which was in view of the living room opened up and a girl with dark brown hair came in with her back turned, lugging a suitcase and grumbling to herself, "Great, just perfect. We get to go to the beach and Forrest backs out at the last minute. It's going to be no fun without him there, just annoying little kids."

My eyes widened, my jaw dropped, and I could feel the color drain from my face.

"Hey, LB girl," Axel waved a hand in front of my face, "You still with us?"

The girl, who was apparently about thirteen years-old apparently heard us 'cause she turned around and the group in the living room could see that she had blue eyes and was wearing blue jeans, and a spaghetti-strap blue shirt that had a pattern all over the front of it that, if you squinted, could be a butterfly, "Hey, Valerie, who are they?" She pointed to Axel and Demyx.

"He's Demyx and I'm Axel. Got it memorized?" Axel tapped his head as if to indication memorization.

"They're Hideo's cousins visiting from... far away!" I hurried to come up with an excuse, thinking fast. "You know how Hideo originally lived out of state."

"And how glorious it was," Hideo remminisced(sp?).

"Anyways, they needed a place to stay so I offered them the boys' rooms. Since y'all guys were so kind (insert sarcasm here) as to leave me a note that you were leaving I knew we had room to spare." I explained.

"Oh, I get it," she nodded, "Well, aren't you going to introduce me?"

"Oh, yeah. Demyx, Axel, this is Jamie she's my (coughcough) twin sister." I explained.

((A/N: The infamous Daizy make her debut! Though she won't be called Daizy. But don't be fooled, it _is_ her. Appearances are deceiving people!))

"Whoa! LB girl has a twin sister?" Demyx seemed utterly shocked while Axel seemed surprised.

"Yes I do, and are you going to just call me 'LB girl'?" I raised an eyebrow at them.

"Maybe, it's got a nice ring to it," Demyx nodded.

"Good point," Ashley also nodded, when we had told her about the whole Kingdom Hearts thing a few minutes ago, she hadn't freaked out. She'd simply nodded and said, 'Ah, that explains it.'. Thank God for that girl's open mind.

"Well, what's with their clothes?" Jamie raised an eyebrow at the nobodies' Organization-style cloaks.

"Erm..." Whoops, brain freeze. Darn you, lemonade!

"Where they come from it's rainy, so the wore those to keep the rain off with out having to carry and umbrella and their luggage, because they decided to take a train. Unfortunately, there was a mix up at the train station and their baggage got sent home instead of coming here," Hideo explained.

I instantly gave Hideo a look that read: 'You're-one-of-the-most-bloody-brilliant-people-I-know'. To which he smirked.

"Well, in that case," Jamie annouced, "I'm taking you all shopping! These two need clothes! To the mall! As soon as I unpack." She dragged her suitcase towards her room.

I paled, so did Hideo. The mall did _not_ bode well with me. We don't get along too well.

"Let's run while we have the chance." I stood up and made to go to the front door.

"We can't. They_ do _need clothes after all." Hideo said.

I turned and gave him a glare that said, 'You-may-be-bloody-brilliant-but-that-doesn't-make-me-want-to-hit-you-for-being-the-voice-of-reason-any-less.'.

"Hey," Demyx turned to Axel, "Didn't Larxene drag Lexaeus to 'the mall' one time to help her carry her stuff?"

Axel nodded, "Yeah, and when he got back he needed a few months of therapy."

Axel and Demyx exchanged glances and paled in unision.

I sighed and plopped into a nearby recliner. This was going to be a _long_ day.

* * *

Neassa: Hiya, peoples! Haru told you the OC story while I was out I'm guessing, but just because I probably won't be able to put your OC in here doesn't mean I don't want your ideas! I can tell a ton of you have suggestions now give me some of them, please! I only have a few ideas for this story, so it's just begging to be filled up. Give me ideas, please! AND PLEASE REVIEW!!! 

NOW PRESS THE LITTLE PURPLE/BLUE BUTTON AND MAKE ME A HAPPIER PERSON IN MY TIME OF TRIAL! (Don't ask.)


	3. A Black Hole in Hollister

Neassa: Hi, peoples! Sorry I haven't updated sooner, I should have, I've had plenty of opportunities and inspiration (_especially_ with all the help Eternal-Insomnia-kun and Haphazardous-chan have given me, thanks a ton for that by the way!). But I've been tired out lately. I started taking martial arts and I'm currently sick as a dog(though I feel more like a wolf with the way my coughing sounds).

Haru: You're updating now, though.

Neassa: My point exactly! So don't get mad at me! On with the chap!

* * *

"Hey, I know you have your heart set on the mall, Jamie, but how are we gonna get there? We aren't exactly old enough to drive, yet!" I was still trying desperately to get out of going to the mall. 

"Isn't Hideo in driver's ed?" asked Jamie, putting some clothes up in the hall closet as her closet was full(she goes shopping every Tuesday I tell you!).

"Well, yeah, but he doesn't have his permit, yet and even if he did, you can't drive even with a permit unless there's a licensed 18-year-old in the car, right?" I didn't like where Jamie was going with this.

She paused in hanging up her things and looked at the ceiling, "The mall's not _that _far away... and that Axel guy could _easily_ pass for 18..."

"No! No way! There's no way you're getting me into that car to go to the _mall _of all places with Hideo driving!" I said, with the tone of 'This-conversation-is-over'

* * *

"I hate you all." I was mad beyond all belief. The second I had turned around, Jamie had thrown a pink blanket over me. That was enough to get me screaming bloody murder, close my eyes and huddle into a little ball on the ground. 

Not my best idea considering the second I did Jamie had pulled some rope out of God knows where and tied my hands behind my back with it. The next thing I knew I was being shoved into the back of my mom's Nissan and Jamie was loading everyone in, forcing Hideo to drive and Axel to sit in the passenger's seat while she, Demyx, and Ashley sat in the back seat. And I was behind everyone, shoved into the place where people usually put their groceries.

What can I say? Pink is my Kryptonite(sp?).

"Hideo, if you kill us all I swear you'll be singing soprano." I was mad. How could he agree with my worst enemy on this world? And agree to drive her to the mall! He was doing it to spite me I just knew it.

Hideo winced, "Duly noted." He began to back out of the driveway and nearly ran into the dumpster in our alley.

"Hideo the brake is the other pedal!"

"I know that!"

"That's a STOP SIGN!"

"I KNOW!"

"Sheesh I'm not even from the world and I can drive better than you..."

"Shut your face!"

"Axel, move, your hair is in my way. Ow--hey, you STABBED me with it!"

"It's your fault for trying to see over my head, shortie."

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!"

"Don't make me come back there!"

"HOLY CRAP YOU ALMOST RAN OVER THAT SQUIRREL!"

"... It would have moved."

"Look, a tour bus!"

"Where?"

"Why is there no water around here?"

"Because it's _Texas_, numbskull."

"What's a Texas?"

((sound of head smacking chair))

I sighed at the random arguments floating through the air as me made our way into the mall parking lot and I finally wriggled my way out of the rope Jamie had tied me up with.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a whistle. But this was no ordinary whistle my dear friends. I also pulled out earplugs, put them in and readied myself just as Hideo parked the car.

I blew the whistle with all my might. The whistle produced a high-pitched noise such that it was barely hearable by the human ear.

Oh, but what an impact it had.

"MY EARS!"

"I'LL GO DEAF!!!"

"WHAT IS THAT HORRIBLE NOISE?!"

"BLLLAAAAHHHH!!!"

"I'M DYING!!!"

I stopped blowing the whistle and the entire car turned on me like lions would turn on a wounded antelope, "That's what you get for tying me up and throwing me in the back of the car! Let's go now." I opened the back of the car and hopped out and the others followed, rubbing their ears as they went.

"Let's go to GameStop!" Ashley suggested getting ready to make a break for the video game store.

"Not so fast!" Jamie grabbed Ashley's arm as she was beginning to make a break for it, "We're getting clothes first!" Considering that Jamie was beginning to foam at the mouth, Ashley wisely chose not to object.

Jamie dragged us into one of her favorite stores, I forget what it was called... Hollister or something. She decided Demyx would be her first victim, she pulled things off the shelves and racks at rapid speed, being an experienced shopper. She shoved the stuff, all of which were varying shades of blue white and khaki(sp?), into Demyx's arms and told him to go try them on in the changing room.

Demyx, being scared of my sister already, did go change in the changing room and came back at sporting an unbuttoned blue Hawaiian style shirt over a white undershirt and khaki cargo shorts. He was barefooted because you can't really wear black boots with that kind of outfit.

Jamie nodded, pleased with her work, "We'll have to get you shoes after this, the rest of the stuff should fit if that does. Axel... hmm... as much as I hate to admit it, you're probably going to have to have my sister help you with that. I have no idea how to work with redheads." Jamie explained, seeing how most of her friends were blondes and brunettes.

Axel, instead of taking this as an insult, took it as a sign of divine intervention and mentally thanked his 'lucky stars'.

I nodded accepting my task, I might not go shopping often, but I knew what looked good on people and was able to pick it out fairly easily. I had one trick...

... avoid what's in style at all costs.

I handed Axel some dark blue jeans and a few shirts, mostly varying shades of red and black, but I threw in one or two green ones that were supposed to accent his eyes and make his hair stick out like a sore thumb.

He tried them on and they fit so Jamie bought all the stuff and we left the store(where does she get all that money), well... at least we tried to leave the store. Jamie went ahead leaving the guys to carry the bags, but as we were leaving the store a dark hole opened in front of us.

"Yahoo! Black hole!" yelled Ashley, cannon balling into it, I not thinking straight, immediately followed her lead.

"You idiots!" I heard Hideo yell as we disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

I looked around me, there was darkness everywhere. 

_You idiot,_ I mentally scolded myself, _what were you thinking jumping into a random black hole?_

I thought I heard something behind me and turned to see a really tall hooded figure a couple of feet in front of me, "Um... hi."

The figure didn't respond, he (I could tell that it was a 'he' at least) simply took a few steps closer to me. My eyes followed his hand, leaving me cross-eyed as I tried to blow on his finger, which was perched atop my nose, causing my bangs to fly about my face.

The look on my face must have been pretty comical because a light, relieved sounding chuckle came from the figure as he ruffled my hair.

"Hey!" I protested, trying halfheartedly to smooth my hair back to it's original state. I was holding back a smile. The figure may have been wearing what looked to be an Organization cloak, but it felt to me like he was familiar somehow, "I think I know you, do I?"

Once again, he didn't respond. I was beginning to wonder if he was mute, but then again I didn't know any mute people...

He turned and began to walk away. "Hey, wait!" I shouted, I still wanted to know who this guy was.

He stopped and turned his head quickly, and in doing so something he was wearing under his cloak came out over it. I recognized the silver cross necklace immediately and froze.

"R-Riku?"

* * *

Neassa: CLIFFHANGER! Oh, wow I am _so_ evil aren't I? Tee-hee. I'm a little crazy and light-headed feeling because I had my second lesson of martial arts yesterday. So now I'm not only sore in places I didn't know existed, but a girl I was supposed to attack so she could practice self-defense blind-folded (she was a brown belt, I think) made it a point to try and hit a pressure point in my neck so, yeah. That _really_ hurts and now I can't think straight, well I usually think in circles, but still! 

Kyo: ((scoffs)) Quit being such a crybaby! You're going to have to get used to it.

Neassa: You, be quiet! You've been doing martial arts since you were how old? Six? Eight? So shut your face and leave me alone! As for all my lovely readers out there, please REVIEW!!!


	4. The fangirl mob! RUN AWAY!

Neassa: I'm back! ((dodges halfway maggot eaten cow thrown by Long Winded)) I would have updated sooner, but Long Winded smacked me over the head with a bat when she read the cliffy, making me forget everything I was going to write!

Haru: But we're back now, so on with the chap!

**

* * *

**

_Last Time:_

_He stopped and turned his head quickly, and in doing so something he was wearing under his cloak came out over it. I recognized the silver cross necklace immediately and froze._

_"R-Riku?"_

* * *

"Riku?" 

He tensed up immediately. No way, this couldn't possibly be Riku could it? He was too tall! I probably barely came up to his shoulder if even that! There's no way he could get that tall that fast!

And Riku wasn't a part of the Organization, I knew that. Hideo would have told me. He'd beaten KH2. He'd tell me something as important as this!

I took a step towards the figure and he darted away, off into the darkness.

"No, wait!" I tried to chase after him, but he easily outran me. It wasn't long before I could no longer see him, just inky black darkness.

I wandered aimlessly for a while, until I saw a speck of light. Now, after being in monotonous darkness, light was good, light was different. I went towards the light. Whoa, that sounded weird.

Anyways I came up to it and it looked like it was a shiny orb of some kind. I like shiny things, can you blame me for touching it?

The next thing I knew, I was falling. I landed sorely in a sitting position and I looked around, dazed. I was back in the mall, outside Hot Topic to be precise, which was weird because it was on the opposite side of the store from Hollister, where the first black portal was.

"Yo! LB girl!" I snapped my head to where Axel's voice was coming from and saw everyone else running up to me.

"Hey, where'd you run off to?" Jamie asked with a frustrated expression on her face, "We've been looking all over for you!"

"Erm..." I looked around for means of escaping and spotted Hot Topic, "SANCTUARY!!!" I shouted as I dove into the store and was quickly surrounded by the color black and loud music.

The others followed me, but Jamie stood where she was, looking at the store like it would kill her if she was a millimeter closer to it.

Hideo grabbed my forearm with a vice like grip, hauled me to my feet, and promptly dragged me to the back corner of the store where the music was a little quieter and the others followed. "Talk." Man of few words, eh?

I decided to safely ignore him and turned to Ashley, "What happened to you?"

Ashley sighed, "I didn't get to do anything, I just wandered around until I saw something shiny and touched it. Next thing I knew I was falling."

"She decided to make Axel her landing pad." Demyx snickered.

"Yeah, thanks for that." Axel muttered sarcastically, rubbing a rather large bump on his head that I had failed to notice before.

"Yeah, yeah, we know." Hideo said with his arms crossed, "But what happened to _you_?" He gave me a look that clearly portrayed that he knew something happened and he wouldn't leave me alone until I told him. I hate it when he does that.

"I'll tell you guys later," I hissed so that only the two people closest to me could hear, and that was Hideo and Ashley. I then raised my voice, "Hey, where'd Axel go?"

We had to search a bit, but we finally found him looking through some of Hot Topic's 'punk' stuff.

"Hah! I knew he would be the punk type!" Ashley said loudly, pointing to Axel. She then held her hand out to Hideo, "Pay up!"

Hideo grudgingly took out his wallet and slipped her a ten, grumbling the whole time. She just gave him a toothy grin.

I rolled my eyes at them and dragged Axel over to the cash register, bought the stuff he wanted and was about to go outside when the unthinkable happened.

"Like, OMG!!! Those guys look _just_ like those hot guys off of your brother's video game!" One girl said to another as we stepped outside the store. I took one look at the twenty pounds of makeup they were wearing and their overly squinny clothes and knew exactly who they were.

"Preps!" I cried in alarm and virtually tackled Axel and Demyx back into the store with the help of Hideo and Ashley.

"No, worse." Hideo said, peeking his head back out the door where the girls seemed to have multiplied from two to twenty, "Fangirls."

**THUD!!!**

"Hey, guys? Demyx fainted." Ashley said, crouching next to the fallen nobody and poking him with a stick that she had apparently pulled out of nowhere.

Hideo smacked his forehead with enough force to break a normal person's bone. But not Hideo. He drinks his milk! Everyone, you should drink milk. It's good for your bones!

"Axel, you go into the dressing room and change into whatever Jamie got you or whatever you just bought," Hideo said, instinctively taking charge, "Ashley and Valerie, try to find a way to get Demyx up. I'll go talk to the employees and see if they have a back door or something." Then Hideo walked off.

Ashley stuck her tongue out at Hideo's retreating back as she rolled Demyx onto his back. I walked over to them and kneeled nearby, "What do you think we should do?" I asked.

Ashley shrugged and I sighed then noticed something, "Hey what's that?" I pointed to Demyx's hand which seemed to be clutching something. Ashley helped me pry it out of his hand and I held it up to the light.

It looked to be a musical not made of water, though it kept its shape and didn't splatter everywhere, "What's this?"

"Oh, that's Demyx's key chain," Axel came up behind us wearing a sleeveless black shirt that had ragged edges where the sleeves should have started and well and a pair of dark grey cargo pants. He was wearing a collar-like choker and a long chain around his neck as well, his outfit vaguely reminded me of something Hatsuharu from Fruits Basket might wear.

"He uses it to summon his sitar," Axel continued, "He doesn't need it, but he likes using it to annoy us because we can't destroy it or use it to summon his sitar and destroy that. He plays his sitar at night to annoy us and he says that only people who have the ability to use water magic can summon his sitar with it. And water isn't a very common magic to have, so we were pretty much stuck." He stopped talking to stare fearfully at the fangirls who were looking in through the window and spotted him in a muscle shirt.

I felt sorry for the poor janitor who had to mop up their drool.

"Really?! Cool! Lemme see!" Ashley leaned over Demyx's still stationary body to snatch the key chain outta my hand.

The instant she grabbed it, the key chain began glowing and then there was a flash of light and Ashley was left sitting stunned with a blue sitar in her lap, "Oh. Frick."

Axel's jaw hit the floor and my eyes widened beyond the point of physical capability before I grinned, "Way to go, Ashley! Why don't you try playing it and see what happens?"

Ashley nodded dazedly and she strummed a single string on the sitar. The result was instantaneous. About a bucket of water appeared out of nowhere and splashed down on Demyx's head.

Demyx sat up sputtering and he jumped to his feet and spotted his sitar in Ashley's hands, "Gimme that!" He snatched it back, strummed a cord and all the water on and around him formed itself into a ball and, as Demyx continued to play, it went over the fangirls outside and basically exploded.

There were screams and mass mayhem everywhere as the fangirls unfortunate enough to get hit by the water ran in different directions, trying to find a bathroom to re-apply their make-up which was now running down there faces.

"Hey, guys!" Hideo came up behind us, scaring the life out of Demyx, "The cash register guy said there was a backdoor! Demyx, get changed and we can go!"

Demyx changed into the outfit Jamie had made him try on in Hollister and everyone gathered near the backdoor, hurrying because the fangirls were plotting how to get into Hot Topic without melting. We went through the empty back halls of the mall. All in all it was pretty creepy. Everything was grey and there was barely any light.

We actually ended up in, conveniently, a shoe store.

"Whoa..." Everyone turned to look at Demyx as he looked with starry eyes at... a blue pair of 'Vans'?

He instantly grabbed them off of the shelf, "Mine!"

Hideo sighed, "Demyx are they the right size?"

Demyx blinked and looked through various shoe boxes before grabbing one, looking inside, then clutching it to his chest, "Mine!"

I looked around for Axel and noticed he already had a shoe box tucked away safely under his arm. Where, how, or when he got it nobody knew.

We also bought some socks and a black pair of sandals for Axel, and some blue flip flops for Demyx, just to be safe. I mean, they couldn't possibly wear those shoes all the time could they?

"Do these make my feet look fat?" Demyx asked, holding his Van covered foot out in front of him.

I sighed, "For the _twentieth_ time, Demyx, NO! Gosh, my sister is rubbing off on you! Ashley! Take Demyx to GameStop and de-Jamiefy him!"

"Sure!" Ashley seemed all too happy to do so, grabbing Demyx by the hand and dragging him off.

I turned and pointed at Hideo and Axel, "You two, go get some food? I'm gonna go get some coffee. It's gonna be a _long_ afternoon..." I walked off to a nearby Starbucks and waited in line for what seemed like ever before I got to order my Frapuchino(sp?).

Sipping my 'Coffee' flavored Frapuchino (as opposed to French Vanilla or Caramel) I walked towards the food court where I knew Hideo and Axel would be.

"Listen, numbskull, twenty dollars minus sixteen dollars and forty-two cents is _not_ a nickel!" I looked up at the familiar voice and saw Axel looking about ready to torch the guy behind the cash register for a Chinese restaurant in the mall.

"Duuude, yeah it is." Said the guy who really looked like he belonged in a mental institution for hippies.

I looked around for Hideo and saw him trying to get through the quickly gathering crowd with no success. I proceeded to try to get through the crowd as well, having a little more success seeing as how I had to do this all the time at my sister's basketball games.

Right step there, squeeze between the couple there, hop to the side to avoid that fat guy that smells funny, and then stumble into the clear.

When I blinked to regain my bearings I saw sparks quickly becoming flames around Axels hands and suddenly he was holding two white and red, four-pointed chakrams. I yelped quietly and quickly hurried over to him and put my hand over his white knuckled fist that was holding tightly to its respective chakram.

He blinked and looked down at me with a questioning glance, "Quit it, firebug!" I hissed at him, "Not here, there's a crowd, you can burn some of my sister's stuff when we get home okay?"

Hideo finally stumbled through the crowd and came up to us, "Yeah, put those things away fast! The security guards are coming!" He nodded in the direction of several guards pushing their way through the crowd.

Axel scowled angrily and, with visible effort, dismissed his chakrams with a flash, just as the guards showed up.

"What's going on?" One of the guards demanded.

"This guy didn't give me the right amount of change," Axel growled through clenched teeth, jerking his thumb at the guy behind the counter, "He claims that twenty dollars minus sixteen dollars and forty-two cents is a nickel."

Another guard looked at the guy behind the counter and sighed, "Hippie Sam? This is the third time this week! Give the guy his change."

'Hippie Sam' laughed the way only hippies could and said, "Duuuuude, everything is the same on the road of life, know what I'm saying, bro?"

The first guard spoke up again, "Just give him his money."

Sam sighed, "Whatever dudes, I don't see why it's such a big deal." He handed Axel three dollars and fifty three more cents. "Have a good day, dude."

"Too late." Axel virtually growled taking our food and walking over to a nearby table. The crowd dispersed and we started eating. About halfway through our meal (Mmm... chicken fried rice...) Hideo realized something.

"Hey shouldn't we get some food for Ashley and Demyx?"

I finished my chicken before replying, "Nope, they're probably already hyped up on candy bars or something.

* * *

((In another part of the mall A.K.A.: KB Toys.)) 

Ashley and Demyx both sneezed at the same time. "Someone's talking about us," Demyx sniffed as he ate another blue raspberry 'Sour Straw' and Ashley took a bite out of a 'Crunch' bar.

They then continued to play frisbee with a hover disc, having completely forgotten about GameStop.

* * *

Axel, Hideo, and I shrugged, going back to our food, not really thinking about it too much.

* * *

Neassa: Wow, that was one of the longest chaps I've ever typed (Over 2300 words! ((gasp!))), I think. You people better be grateful!!! ((Shakes fist at readers.)) 

Readers: ((Snarl.))

Neassa: ((Hides behind Haru.)) Eep!

Haru: ((sighs)) At this point Neassa would probably say-

Momiji: ((cuts Haru off)) REVIEW PLEASE!!!

Neassa: I'm going to go back to trying to solve my Rubik's Cube!!! I _will_ solve it soon! PLEASE REVIEW!!!


	5. Axel meets teh DDR Machine!

Neassa: Hi, peoples! I is back! ((huggles German Shepard puppy from LongWinded)) And _MAJOR_ props to EarthDragonAlchemist for being the only person that I know of the appreciate the, 'When life gives you nobodies, make lemonade.' line. ((sighs)) And here I was thinking I was _so_ clever.

Neassa: On with the chap!

* * *

After the 'Hippie Incident' we joined back up with Ashley and Demyx. We had to practically drag Demyx kicking and screaming away from KBToys. I had to distract him by buying him a floppy, blue, puppy plushie to get him to be quiet. He promptly named the puppy Joel. 

In any event, the fangirls had cornered us again, though this time we were taking refuge inside GameStop and Demyx didn't faint. We were busy trying to figure out what to do, 'we' being me, Hideo, Axel, and Sean, an aquaintence who worked at GameStop, (we had told him that Axel and Demyx were freakish look-alikes and, being rather dense, he bought it) he had sandy brown hair and teasing blue eyes.

Ashley and Demyx were otherwise occupied with Game Demos ("HAHAHA!!! I BEAT YOU!!!", "NO YOU DIDN'T!!!", "REMATCH!!!").

Anyways, we were gathered in a circle in the back corner, forlorn because GameStop didn't have a back door, trying to come up with a plan.

I thought of something, "Oh, OH!" I waved my hand around to get their attention. "How about this? We shove Hideo outside as a sacrifice/peace offering and run away while they're distracted!"

Hideo paled to white.

"Or," said Sean tentatively, "We could call Claire's since it's right across from us and get them to annouce 20 percent off for the next five minutes and y'all can get away while they're distracted."

"What makes you think 'Claire's' will agree to it?" asked Axel, speaking up for the first time.

"We'll tell them that there's a whole bunch of fangirls right outside." Sean explained.

"Yeah! Let's go with that!" Hideo said hurriedly.

I sighed, "Alright, but I want y'all to remember the Hideo peace offering plan, I think it's a winner." Tehehe, I quoted Sokka!

So Sean called Claire's and we got ready to make a break for it. The second the fangirls turned their heads we ran for it. We were almost to the parking lot when I heard a fangirlish squeal.

No one needed to be told, we ran for our lives.

We got to the car and threw the doors open. I jumped into the passenger seat and Axel, Demyx, and Ashley got in the back while Hideo jumped into the driver's seat. He fumbled with the keys for a moment before starting the car and pulling out of the mall parking lot with speed that would make any NASCAR driver green with envy.

He didn't stop going that fast until we reached the house, which thankfully wasn't that far away.

I litterally fell out of the car.

"LAND!!!" I exclaimed, nearly kissing my driveway.

Hideo rolled his eyes at this display, "I wasn't_ that_ bad."

"LIAR!" I pointed at him accusingly. I then realized something. I hadn't had a Fresca since yesterday when I got home from school. That means my brain should stop working right about...

I felt my pupils dilate.

... Now.

My thought process went blank and all that was going on in my head was some of that annoying elavator music.

I saw Axel crouch down to my level, "Hey, LB girl?" He poked my shoulder, hard, "You alive?"

Demyx popped into my line of vision so quickly that if my brain were working I probably would have jumped two feet in the air or had a heart attack or both. He waved a hand in front of my face and, getting no response, he sighed, "I think she's dead."

I could practically hear Hideo roll his eyes, "No, she's not. She just gets dramatic when she hasn't had Fresca for a while."

DRAMATIC?!?! My brain was shutting down and he thought I was being dramatic?!

"Hey, Vaaaaalerie!" I directed my pupils upward and saw Ashley.

Dangling a cold, un-opened Fresca two inches from my face.

My eyes widened beyond the point of physical capability, "MINE!" I literally pounced on the can of Fresca, opening it and downing the contents faster than the human eye could comprehend. I sighed deepely, "I needed that." I then skipped into the garage and, when I was standing in the doorway to the laundry room, which was conected to the driveway, and turned and called back to them, "C'mon! We don't have all day, y'know!"

Axel and Demyx looked positively dumbstruck, while Hideo and Ashley just shrugged and came inside, used to this kind of behavior.

I bounced inside and saw the DDR setup we had abandoned when Demyx and Axel arrived, "Hey! DDR!" I walked over to the XBox and turned it on, as well as the TV. I grinned when I heard the lovely hum of electronics working consecutively.

I heard a sound behind me and turned around quickly, "I challenge you to a DDR match!" I had pointed my finger at a random person who happened to be... Axel, "A match between pyros!"

Axel nodded solemnly, "I accept your challenge."

We did the secret pyro handshake to seal the deal while the others looked at us like we were crazy. Axel grinned, "I guess the society of pyros is still the same no mater what planet you're on."

I nodded, "Yup!"

Axel raised an eyebrow at the, still humming, XBox, "So what _is_ DDR?"

* * *

Neassa: Hi guys! Sorry it was short, but it seemed like a good stopping point and I waqnted to give all of my lovely readers and especially my reviewers a Christmas present, besides my Organization one-shot that I posted, which I recommend you all check out. Anyhoo, this is me, Neassa! Coming to you LIVE(okay, not really) from my BRAND. NEW. COMPUTER!!!!! ((noisemakers and conffetti explode)) That's right, folks! For the first time in my life I have a new comp! The keyboard on this one is magnificent so I should be able to type longer, more often! Merry Christmas one and all! God Bless, and REVIEW PLEASE!

P.S. If anyone knows a freeware product that can help me rip video clips off of some DVDs I bought to make music videos that'd be great! Thanks! REVIEW PLEASE NOW!


	6. This is gonna be an awesome Spring Break

Neassa: Hello, all my dear friends! I hope you aren't mad at me more taking so long to update. I have an excuse! My sister's dog had puppies! There! That's my excuse! ... Actually, that was pretty pathetic, wasn't it?

On with the chap!

* * *

After Axel had been properly smacked upside the head for his stupid question, we proceded to show him the basics of DDR. "Soooo... you just put your feet where the arrows are on the song?" He questioned after we had finished explaining.

"Yeah, and you get graded after you finish." Hideo said.

"Well, that doesn't seem so hard..." Axel said, eyeing my silver DDR mat.

"I'll show you!" I offered, hopping off of my seat on the couch. I set the settings to 'Butterfly' on Beginner. I grinned as the music seeped into my senses and I started to play. I got a 'AA' and turned to Axel, "See? No problem!"

Then again I'd had the game for around a year. Axel would be starting in about T minus twenty seconds...

Let's get the audio on the next three minutes shall we?

"Okay, no problem... Lessee... This looks like a good song!"

"Which one is it?"

"Something called 'Sakura'."

"No, Axel don't do it!"

"Why not?"

"It's-"

((Music starts.))

"Hey, the beat's not that bad, and- wow that's fast! Let's try this again, step, step, not too ba-"

**CRACK!!!**

"MY FOOT!!!"

Now that that's over...

"That game is evil." Axel stated, holding a bag of ice on his rapidly turning purple ankle. His left eye was rapidly twitching and he had an anime anger vein that was bigger than his face.

I facefaulted and felt an overwhelming urge to steal Hideo's guns and shoot something. I heard my two dogs barking outside and looked out the window.

My heart skipped a beat.

Puddles of darkness were gathering outside and I could see the beginings of the familiar antenna belonging to the Shadow heartless begin to emerge from them.

"Um... we have a situation here!" I yelped, my voice cracking slightly as a raised a hand to point a shaking figure at the heartless rapidly taking shape in my backyard.

Ashley, oddly, was the one who reacted first. She ran to the backyard's door and swung it open, yelling into the yard, "Dogs! Inside!"

Archie and Emma, being rather smart dogs, came running inside and Ashley slammed the door behind them and locking it, "Well what do we do now?!"

Axel stood, after pulling a Potion out of some hidden pocket and healing his foot, "Kill them, of course." His chakrams flashed into his hands, "What else?"

I glared at him, running towards my mom's room, "No burning down my backyard, firebug!"

Axel winced, "Don't call me that!"

I smirked, "As long as you call me 'LB girl', _I_ call _you_ 'firebug'." I dashed into my mom's bedroom and rummaged around under her mattress, pulling out some sort of pistol along with a few ammo clips, "Hey, Hideo!"

He jogged into the room, "What is it?" I tossed him the clips. "Is this all I have to work with?" He asked irrecudously.

I rolled my eyes, "I'm sorry, Hideo. I'll go get the _dual sawed-off_ _shotguns with unlimited ammo_ my mom keeps in the basement." Sarcasm began puddling on the floor as I went over into my dad's old closet, where we stored building supplies, for science projects and stuff because the garage was full of furniture. I glanced inside and found exactly what I was looking for.

I reached out and grabbed a rather new looking 2x4 that had a nail sticking at an odd angle out of the top.

Hideo raised an eyebrow, "You don't have a basement."

I tested my luck, reaching out and tapping him on the nose with my new weapon, watching in satisfaction as he flinched away, "_Exactly._" I could feel him boring holes into the back of my head as I dashed into the living room. Pays to be safe, kiddies.

When I arrived in the living room Demyx had summoned his sitar and Ashley was holding... a small sledgehammer?!?!

"We own a _sledgehammer?!_" I shrieked, going over to examine it. "Since when?!"

Axel whistled innocently, tucking his plot hole back into his pocket.

Hideo slid a clip of ammunition into the pistol, smirking slightly in satisfaction when he heard a 'click!' as it snapped into place, "Who cares? Let's just go get some heartless!" And with that, he left the rest of us behind, rushing outside.

"Hey! Wait up!" I yelped, following him, my body finding itself in the fighting stance I had used before, in Kingdom Hearts. "Hi-YAH!" I shouted as I slammed down the board on top of an attacking Shadow's head. Ashley gave me a thumbs up and grinned stupidly as she whacked at the Shadows around her in a strange rendition of 'Whack-a-Mole'. A few gunshots rang out, that was enough to tell me that Hideo was holding up well on his end.

"Dance, Water, Dance!" I didn't bother turning around as I heard Demyx play a few chords on his sitar, though I did get splashed a bit as I ducked to avoid the swipe of a Shadow's claws.

"Urah!" I yelled stupidly, pummeling the shadows around me with the nail poking out of my wooden board. I flinched as a flaming chakram flew right past my face, singing the tips of my bands into a charcoal grey color. I turned to yell at Axel, and saw that the cakram had speared a shadow that was about to jump on me. I gulped, "I owe you one, Axel."

I didn't here a reply- but he nodded, and went back to fighting- as did I.

I heard a clicking noise that old me Hideo was out of ammo, indeed, the battle was taking a turn for the worst. Whenever we cut down a Shadow, four more would take it's place. I took a step back- right into one of the holes my dogs had recently dug.

I yelped as I fell back, the wind getting knocked out of me, and blinked dazedly up at the sky. I heard Hideo make a kind of strangled nose between a growl and a yell as he yelled up at the sky, "Hey! disembodied voice! I know you're listening! If you want us alive and in possesion of our hearts much longer, you'd better get our weapons to us! Now!"

My eyes widened as a shadow lept at me, I put my hands in front of my face, closed my eyes, and started praying. I saw of flash of light beyond my eyelids and heard a very familiar voice begin speaking.

_I apologize. I did not think the heartless would find Organization members VIII and IX so easily._

I didn't dare open my eyes, I wasn't sure what I would see if I did, but I heard Hideo start talking.

"Yeah, yeah. Just give us our weapons."

"Oh, oh! I want something too!" That would be Ashley, of course. "I want magic too!"

_Very well, I'll see what I can do._

Just then I saw another flash behind my eyelids and I felt a familiar weight fall into my hands, I opened my eyes just in time to block myself from the attacking Shadow.

With my Awakening katana.

"YEESSSSSS!!!!!" I exclaimed, hugging my katana, becoming oblivious to the world around me. This of course, earned me a cut from the top of my temple to the my chin on the right side of my face, "Gah!" I turned around and slashed the offending shadow in half. I closed my eye to block out the blood and raised a hand to touch the cut.

"Cure!" I felt the skin meld back together under my fingertips, leaving behind only the escaped blood. I blinked and turned to where the voice had come from, Ashley. She waved at me, "You okay?" I nodded. She was holding a long, spindly hammer with a white, wooden curved handle. It had a green, foamy grip in the center. The head was some kind of metal, steel I think; formed in the shape of a misshapen five pointed star with a flat head and bladed points. Two small streamers hung from the handle, right underneath the head, a pair of blue strings with a silver star-shaped bead each dangling from the ends.

Whoever the disembodied voice was they sure liked outfit coordination.

"Alright!!!!" I heard a cry of pure joy and saw Hideo holding his shotguns with a grin I had never seen before on his face, "Everyone, duck!!!"

We didn't need to be told twice. Well, actually Ashley did.

"Where?!" She looked around excitedly for the poultry before Demyx grabed the hem of her shirt and yanked her down.

As soon as everyone was down Hideo began spinning around, holding the triggers down on his shotguns and letting loose a hail of bullets. Now, I know what you're thinking. 'Shadows are short, so Hideo shouldn't be able to hit them, right?' Wrong. The shadows were jumping around everywhere, right into Hideo's bullets.

I blinked once I could no longer here gunshots and sat up, looking around. Darkness was disentigrating and crystal hearts were floating up to who-knows-where.

I saw everyone else getting up and looked once again at my katana. I was instantly blinded by the sunlight its shiny surface reflected back at me. Once I regained the ability to see I stood up, looked around and noticed my backyard had miraculously not been torn to pieces by 'Hideo's Bullet Barrage' as I had decided to call it. Neither had my house.

I grinned at the two nobodies I had agreed to board, and at my friends with their weapons. I pumped one fist in the air.

"This is gonna be an awesome Spring Break!"

* * *

Neassa: And there you have it! It's long than normal and everything! Please Review!!! I love feedback! Every time you read and don't review, Axel fries a gopher (( --- Yargy's idea.))! Think of the gophers people! Please review! It's what keeps me going! Review, please! 


	7. Yes, I do have Writer's Block

Neassa: Guess what? I get to take care of a little black mouse for two weeks to get extra credit in Biology! ((squeal)) He's so cute! Except that his ears are practically gone because he fought with the other mice and he has a few bald spots. I've secretly named him Ryuho. .

On with the chap!

((P.S. To Kyo of the COCA, yes the cat on the shirt is Kyo, I actually have that shirt, 'cause I got it from Hot Topic. But now it has a few paint splotches on it because I wore it while I was painting my room, but it's still awesome! And you should shoot for Demyx, because my best friend is a rabid Kyo fangirl and would gladly hunt you down and eat you to narrow down the competition.))

* * *

I stared at the pile of money that had been collected with stars in my eyes. The shadows didn't only drop Potions they dropped money! _American_ money! 

I reached out to touch it, only to have my hand slapped away by an irate Hideo, "Bad. We have to count the money and we can't get an accurate count if you keep snatching it."

It was true, my pockets were already home to several various bills and about twenty quarters. I should be allowed to have it though, right?! I was the one boarding two Nobodies at my house!

**Slap!**

"OW!" Bad hand! Moving without my consent!

Hideo rolled his eyes at me and continued counting the money. I slunk away, over to where Demyx was completely destroying any and every goal I had ever made on my DDR game. He'd been playing for half an hour and was already in the midst of mastering 'Butterly' on 'Heavy'. I hadn't even done that yet!

"I hate you, Demyx." I said at the same time as Axel. I gave him a funny look and resumed going to my room. I wanted to make a new music video or work on CoM. The arrival of Axel and Demyx had make me ever the more determined to beat the stupid Riku Replica for the second time on Reverse/Rebirth in Twighlight Town. He shall not get the better of me!

However, as I was passing Jamie's room I spotted a mountain of clothes. I remembered my promise to the firebug and decided to have a bonfire with a few of Jamie's outfits and the pile of wood outside. But first...

"Hey, guys!" I came back into the living room, "I'm gonna go to the store, be back in a few!" as I passed Hideo, who was sitting at the kitchen table, I grabbed a fistful of bills (He protested loudly and with a spoon, but I ignored him). I would probably only need a ten at the very most, but it never hurst to have a little extra cash, right?

"I'm coming too!" I turned and Ashley came running up to me, "I wanna ask you questions about Kingdom Hearts!"

"Like what?" I asked, completely disregarding the fact that I was leaving three guys, in my house, unsupervised.

"Like what all happened when you were there!"

"Ah... _everything_?" I was thinking of a particular moment that I would rather not have to call to attention ((See YNKWWH Chapter: 18 last paragraphs(Soon to be revised))). It wasn't that I was embarrased about it, it was more I didn't want her asking questions about him with my encounter in the black hole still fresh on my mind. It was too confusing.

"_Everything._" She confirmed.

"No." I opened the garage door and grabbed my red and silver 'Mongoose' bike, walking it to the driveway.

"Wait, what?" Ashley grabbed Jamie's viridian and silver 'Schwinn'(sp?) bike and followed me. United Supermarkets was only about 5 or so blocks from my house, so we could ride bikes to it and back.

"There are some things I'd rather not tell." I rode down the driveway and into the street, narrowly missing running over some sparrows. Oops.

"Ah! So you have secrets!" Ashly sounded evil as she followed me. I pedalled faster, "Well I'm going to find out everything!"

"No."

* * *

"So, Riku's like your _boyfriend_?" Ashley teased as I banged my head against the wall by the the entrance of the store, scaring a few innocent (coughyeahrightcough) girl scouts. We had already put our bikes in the bike rack and I had made the mistake of not thinking before I spoke, thus allowing Ashley to learn about Riku. 

"Don't say it like that! It sounds so... Mary-Sueish." I shuddered. I started in towards the store, Ashley following me with an evil grin on her face.

"Well, that's too bad! When were you planning on telling me this? After your honeymoon?!"

I fwacked her with the bag of marshmallows I had just grabbed. "No."

"Well, than when!?"

I smirked sarcastically, "Before the honeymoon."

I got a box of grahm crackers chucked at my head for that one.

* * *

_It is time for a subliminal message._

_YARGY THE PIRATE QUEEN, I SWEAR IF YOU DON'T UPDATE YOUR KH STORY I'LL HUNT YOU DOWN! I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS!_

_Thank you for your time._

* * *

"Hi, guys! We're... back?" I trailed off, eyes widening at the scene before me. Hideo was counting money as calmly as before, but Axel and Demyx were pinned to the wall with kitchen knives, the latter clutching Joel in fright. 

I dropped the groceries on the table and turned to Hideo, "Fix the wall after you're done torturing them and I won't have to kill you."

"Tch."

I stuck my tongue out at him.

* * *

Neassa: I'M SORRY! I know it's short, but the writer's block is eating me alive! Heh, did you guys know I didn't even originally have a goal for this story except to have a reason not to kill off Axel and Demyx? Heh. ((looks sheepish)) Soooo... ideas and plot suggestions are greatly appreciated! Maybe it'll help me update faster! 

Kyouya: ((pops out of nowhere)) That'll be the day. ((is shot))

Neassa: PLEASE REVIEW!!! I am writing this sentence because I have a 1,000 word limit for my chaps and I was down by five. PLEASE REVIEW!!!


	8. Tis Pathetically Short, Eh, Such Is Life

Neassa: Hi, peoples. I'm in computer class, so I'll make this quick.

* * *

The next day, having spent the last night getting Axel and Demyx down from the kitchen wall and then shoving Demyx in my brother's room and Axel in my other brother's room, I was barely awake, in that nice half-awake, half-asleep. You know the one. Where you just relax in bed on the weekend, not having to move a muscle and just relishing in the warmth that your covers provide. 

That is until the loud sound of something resembling guitar music reaches your ears.

I tried to ignore it, burying my head in another pillow, but only succeeded in nearly suffocating myself. I managed to pry myself out of bed and stumbled over to the door, nearly tripping over the long fabric of my pajama pants. I opened the door, nearly putting a hole in the opposite wall.

I spotted the culprit, Demyx, sitting on the couch, sitar in hand with Ashley sitting next to him, watching as his fingers danced lightly across the strings. Hideo sat in the chair and seemed to desperately be trying to shut him up. Smart Hideo.

I walked over to Demyx and yanked the sitar out of his hands, smashed it several times against the tile of the entryway before throwing it to the floor and jumping up and down on it. When I was done with my mutilation of the sitar, it hadn't changed a bit. I had concluded that it was made of some kind of indestructible material and that was why my feet hurt so bad.

So, ignoring the fact that Demyx looked like he was about to cry, I stole Axel's plot hole, as he had come to see what all the commotion was about, and pulled a pair of scissors out, cutting all the strings on the sitar. Then I shoved it back in the general direction of Demyx before heading back to my room, hoping to get fifteen more minutes of sleep.

* * *

((3rd PoV: In the living room.)) 

All winced at the sound of a door slamming, and then turned to Demyx. The Melodious Nocturne was a mess, he was sitting next to his sitar, looking at the broken string with a forlorn expression, and no one could quite see whether or not he was crying, but they had a pretty good guess.

"... Did that just happen?" Axel asked, a non-comprehending expression on his face.

"I tried to warn ya, Dem." Hideo said cautiously.

"Erm... Demyx? It's going to be... okay?" Ashley said awkwardly, patting the Melodious Nocturne on the back.

Demyx suddenly froze and spoke in an eerily calm voice, "_I'm going to kill her..._"

It was the start of a very weird day indeed.

* * *

Neassa: Okay, guys. I'm out of ideas so y'all guys need to tell me what you think should happen. Please let me know if you want- 

-For Zexion to show up (I'm getting a lot of requests for that one, but if it does happen, you people will need to tell me if he winds up OOC)

-For the heartless to attack (Not what I originally planned, but still)

-For something else to happen (Please specify in a review)

-I also need plot ideas.

So anyways guys, please help me! And PLEASE REVIEW!!! By the way, the next person who reviews will be my 100th reviewer for this story and as a reward their suggestion will be taken most seriously.

(P.S. Yargy, UPDATE YOUR STORY NOW! I'VE UPDATED TWICE SINCE YOU LAST UPDATED, THAT'S SAD, YARGY, JUST SAD!)


	9. OMG! It's a PLOT! FINALLY!

Neassa: Hi, guys. I was slapped by the inspiration tuna, so guess what? You guys get a second chapter today! One that's four pages long! Good for you! And thanks to HaphazardousInspiration for being the one to throw the inpsiration tuna at me! On with the chap!

* * *

I groaned and swore to murder Demyx. Obviously, I hadn't been able to get back to sleep. I changed into a pair of dark grey cargo pants and a dark tan shirt that read 'It's all a matter of _opinion_.' 

"Hey, LB girl! Sleep well?" Axel teased.

"Shut up and make me French toast," I demanded, entering the living room, obviously not in a good mood. French toast is good cold at about four o'clock in the afternoon, you should try it.

Axel raised an eyebrow, "And if I don't?"

My katana appeared in my hand with a flash and instantly began charging with a Blizzard spell. Sure, I'm more of a pyro myself, but as everyone knows, water and ice are Axel's worst enemy. And since I didn't know any water spells...

"Where do you keep your bread?" Axel was off the couch and in the kitchen faster that the human eye could detect.

I turned to Hideo, after scanning the room for its previous two residents, "Hey, where are Ashley and Demyx?

Hideo turned a page in whatever boring (probably) book he was reading, "Demyx got depressed after you killed his sitar, so he and Ashley went to her house to get her guitar.

"Oh yeah! Ashley has a guitar..." I mumbled mostly to myself, I didn't remember 'cause I'd only seen it once and I'd _never_ seen her play it. She named the bloody thing 'Timon' for crying out loud! "I guess I'll go meet them halfway, nothing better to do here. Keep an eye on Axel and make sure he doesn't burn down my kitchen, kay?"

"Mmmhmm..." Hideo murmured distractedly, eyes glued to his book.

I shrugged and stomped out the front door, fully intent on paying Demyx back for robbing me of my sleep.

* * *

Note to self; make sure to grab a jacket when it's still cold outside. 

I shivered and wrapped my arms tighter around myself, trying desperately to hold onto my body warmth, it was still around ten minutes to Ashley's house and I debated going back to grab a jacket, but I was far too lay and continued to trudge through the wind that West Texas almost always boasted.

I was momentarily blinded when something made of cloth and slightly heavy was dropped on my head.

I jolted and instantly yanked the cloth away from my eyes and turned around, but no one was there. I continued looking, dumbfounded, before looking at the cloth that I still held.

I nearly died.

It was a black jacket that was large enough to be wrapped around one's body like a robe. There was a silver dragon embroidered into it as well, the tail of which wound around the right sleeve.

I let out a soft squeal of ecstasy and instantly pulled it on, delighted to notice that it went nearly to my knees. I practically skipped with joy the rest of the way to Ashley's house.

However, if I had looked to my left I would have seen the tip of a black cloak disappearing behind a bush and bright, relieved eyes peering out of a dark hood.

* * *

When I reached Ashley's house and began to head up the sidewalk I heard a muffled scream and looked up just as Demyx was thrown from the second story window, only to land in the rose bushes below. 

I notice his left ear was bleeding quite a bit, but decided to leave him there and continued up the walk and met Ashley coming out of her house.

"What happened to him?" I jerked my head in the direction of the Melodious Nocturne, who was crawling out of the rose bush and making a huge fuss about the needles now sticking in him at odd angles, making him look rather like a porcupine.

Ashley adjusted the strap of her guitar case on her shoulder and hurried to help Demyx out of the bush, mentally deciding to ask her parents just when they put a rose bush under her window, "Oh, this? He had a run in with Moondancer."

"Ah!" I said, shuddering involuntarily, knowing far too well the horrors of Ashley's My Little Pony unicorn, probably a birthday or Christmas gift from who knows how long ago. All I knew was that that 'innocent little piece of plastic' was evil incarnate. It was why I avoided Ashley's room, and sometimes her house, at all costs.

"Yeah," Ashley nodded solemnly, "I like that coat by the way, when'd you get it?"

"About nine and a half minutes ago."

* * *

((Meanwhile...)) 

"You're supposed to put butter in the pan first."

"Holy wyvern!" Axel jumped about two feet in the air and turned to face Hideo, who was standing right behind him, "Don't do that! When did you come up behind me?!"

"About two minutes ago."

"Whatever," Axel twitched and slapped some butter in the pan before turning to cut a piece of bread from the loaf in the corner, "Just don't do that again."

Ten seconds later, just when all seemed well, Hideo took a metal pot and spoon, held them next to Axel's ear, smirked, and started banging like the British were coming.

Axel yelped and jumped again, this time though, the yelp was followed by a string of curses that made Hideo blink, pick a wooden spoon up off of the counter, and slap Axel's hand with it.

"Ow! What was that for?!" Axel demanded.

"Valerie has this spaz attack whenever someone cusses and smacks them with a wooden spoon. If she found out that I hadn't smacked you with one, she'd tack my skin to the wall above her computer." Hideo explained calmly, putting the spoon in the sink.

"Who cares about that, you psycho?! You made me cut myself!" It was then that Hideo notice the blood welling from a cut along the palm and thumb of Axel's hand (Axel had discarded his gloves along with his Organization XIII outfit the day before).

He sighed and headed for the cabinet to the right of the sink, "Oh, fine. I'll get a bandage and some ointment to stop the bleeding."

"Huh? Bleeding?" The perplexed inquiry came from behind Hideo as he took the first aid kit down from the cabinet.

"Duh, that's what happens when you cut yourself." When Hideo turned he saw that Axel's face was as white as a sheet and even his hair had paled to a drastic pink color as he stared, watching the blood drip from his hand onto the outdated pink tile floor, "What's wrong?"

"This is what's wrong! Got it _memorized_?!" Axel shouted, shoving his hand in Hideo's face, "You know more than the other two, right?! Than you should know that I'm a nobody and that we have no hearts, right? When we get cut, little black wispys float up, indicating darkness or some crap is the only thing that flows through our veins. But we most certainly _don't_ **_bleed_**!"

* * *

Neassa: What's this? Could it possibly be-? A plot?! Oh, and if I get five or more reviewers that really want Zexion in this fic, I'll seriously consider putting him in, but I can't promise much more than that. And I'm still taking suggestions. PLEASE REVIEW! 

(P.S. YargyThePirateQueen , that's three time now. Pick up the pace, girl. You too EarthDragonAlchemist and EternalInsomnia.)


	10. Video Games!

Neassa: Alrighty, I was suddenly overcome by the unmistakable urge to write, problem is, I have no ideas. Oh well, here goes!

On with the chap!

* * *

I yawned lightly as I trudged up the path to my house, ignoring the bickering of the sitarist and guitarist behind me. 

Ashley threw her hands up in exasperation, "WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!"

"A little warning would have been nice," Demyx muttered.

Ashley slapped her forehead, "I already appoligized! You want me to appoligize again?! Alright, I admit I should have told you that she likes to comes to life and- EAT HUMAN SOULS!" The last part was yelled squarely in Demyx's ear.

I felt a vein thobbing in my neck and rubbed the bridge of my nose with my hand, pounding on my front door with the other. Thankfully, though, I didn't have to stop the two from killing eachother, because Demyx fell silent after Ashley's little outburst, but I could have sworn it wasn't because Ashley yelled at him, it must have been something else, something he was thinking about.

I shrugged to myself as Hideo opened the door, must have been my imagination.

* * *

I stared at my kitchen in shock. 

It was a bloody (not literally, just the British adjective) disaster zone. There were bread crumbs on the floor and burnt ones on the stove, raw egg made a trail from the stove to the trash can it also looked as though Axel had spilt milk all over the kitchen and somehow gotten butter on the ceiling...

But the worst part was that the 'French Toast' was burnt to a crisp. Burnt Toast Crunch would have been closer to the real thing. Axel came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder, "I tried to warn you, what did you think, that I'd be able to magically come up with super awesome chef skills?"

I was in the corner in .032 seconds, if it were anime I would have had my own little gloom aura type thing as a dark cloud appeared over my head and began to rain on my parade. (Picture what Tamaki in Ouran High School Host Club does when he's insulted.)

But I was laughing soon after when Demyx poked one of the pieces of French toast and it exploded.

* * *

I yawned and stretched out on the couch, planting my legs on Hideo's lap. He gave me a sneer of disgust and shoved my legs off of him. I stuck my tongue out at him and directed my attention to the other people in the living room sipping lemonade, "Anyone wanna play a video game?" 

"Not DDR!" Axel exclaimed.

I shrank back a bit from his outburst, "Okay... maybe those of us who the game didn't horribly maim could play it later, what about..." I went to my room and over to the shelf above the desser that housed my tv, on the south side of the room. I took about half the shelf off, the half I took being PS2 games, the other half being anime and a couple of GameCube games.

I returned to the living room and dumped my load on the coffee table surrounded by the loveseat, couch, recliner and automon. I then began to sift through as Axel and Demyx watched intrigued and Ashley played with some lint she got from who-knows-where. Hideo just looked bored.

"X-Men Legends? No... Soul Caliber 3? No... I'm only good with Seong-Mina... Sly 3? No, only Demyx would like that right now... "

"I COUNT!"

"Fine... Yeesh... " After rifling through a few more game cases I was struck by inspiration! No, seriously. Hideo through a case at me and it hit me in the back of my head. After rubbing the growing bump on the back of my head I opened my mouth to yell at him before I realized just what I had been hit with.

"'Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament'?! Freakin' YES!" I made a sound that was the closest to fangirlish squealing as I'd ever let myself come and hugged the game case close to my chest, "Wait a sec..." I paused and gave Hideo a suspicious glance, "How did you magically pull this out of thin air when it dissapeared two months ago?"

He shrugged, "I was bored and needed something to play."

"..." I stared blankly at him, wondering how to react.

"I unlocked Jin for you."

"I love you!" I tackle-glomped him, but quickly backed off when he put a gun to my forehead, a disgusted look on his face.

"Enough of that," Ashley broke in, ripping the game out of my hands, causing me to glare, "Let's play some video games!

* * *

Neassa: I'm sorry it's short, but that's all I can write right now. And I'm also upset that people forgot my birthday AGAIN! PLEASE REVIEW! 


	11. ZEXY!

Hi! This is a short chap, but at least I wrote one! Please excuse the typos, I'll spell check later, but I wanted to get the out tonight, and if you haven't read Chapter 10, go do so because I reaplaced the authoress note.

On with the chap!

* * *

We played video games well into the night, ordering a pizza when it came around dinner time, everyone crashed in the living room. Hideo somehow managed to sleep sitting up with his eyes open and I half-expected him to whisper, _'I'm watching you...'_. 

Demyx and Ashley were asleep on the love seat, cuddling unconsciously as their bodies sought warmth in a perfect Kodak moment; and Axel hogged the couch, super long legs making it impossible for anyone else to get a seat, one arm and leg hanging off the edge, snoring at a deafening volume.

My insomnia was acting up, so I went into the laundry room where the dogs were sleeping to give them food and water. The were both purebred shelties; Archie (the male) much smaller, even tempered, and lighter colored than Emma (the female) who was the largest sheltie I'd ever seen, spastic, almost all black and currently very pregnant.

I smiled, knowing she was due any day and that I would be keeping a strict eye on her puppies because of an accident that occurred with the first litter.

I was sitting there, petting them both as they vied for attention, when I heard a very familiar voice.

_How peaceful._

My eye twitched, "Chikuso."

Suddenly everything went white and I could hear the voice much more clearly.

_That's not very nice._

"What do you want this time?!" I wailed in exaggerated agony.

_Hmph! How rude._

"Get on with it!"

_Very well, it appears Numbers IX and VIII are not high enough ranking to suitably find out information concerning the master plan of the Nobodies should you turn them to our side._

"So you're taking them back?"

_No._

"Merde."

_Shut up._

"Bite me. So what's the point of this little chit-chat?"

_I'm giving you a new freeloader._

"WHAT?!"

There was another white flash and my eyes snapped open to find Emma directly in my face and what was undoubtedly her drool all over it. Ew...

Suddenly, a crash came from the living room. I dashed out, leaving the dogs in my wake and halted at the entrance to the living room trying to keep from laughing.

Apparently the disembodied voice decided it hated Axel. It had evidently opened a portal right above him so the newcomer crashed directly down on him and now they were both on the floor in a tangle of limbs, so I couldn't see the newcomer's face.

They detangled themselves and I got a look at the new person's face as did everyone else in the room because the crash had apparently woken everyone else up.

Silver hair, long bangs covering one eye in a style a stereotyper would call emo, but what I call freaking awesome. I shouldn't see his visible eye from my angle and didn't have time to readjust because he was instantly glomped from behind by Demyx, who gleefully cried, "ZEXY!" obviously overjoyed to see his friend and fellow nobody.

'Zexy' detached Demyx from him and looked around, shock written across his face. "Axel... Demyx... ?" His eye found me and Hideo, narrowing a bit, "Keybearer's guardian, her companion..." He turned back to Demyx, "What going on?"

Hideo and I exchanged glances and I sighed, "You get the muffins, I'll make the lemonade."

* * *

Mwuaha! Zexion... I'm so evil... PLEASE REVIEW! 


	12. Musings of a Couple of Nobodies

First of all, I'd like to think all my reviewers because I was going through the reviews and I checked out each and everyone's profiles and I gotta say it turns out you guys like my humor a lot to put quotes on your pages and favorite me. I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!! ((glomps reviewers)) Anyhoo, I updated so soon because I wanted to thank you all for your support, so without any further ado...

... On with the chap!

* * *

We were all congregated in the living room again, poppy-seed muffins and lemonade all around. Though, truthfully Zexion was too wary of the muffins and lemonade to actually eat any. I had to practically force the muffin down his throat. Then well, apparently Zexion has a weakness for muffins. He stole the package and refused to give it back. 

Even so, he managed to give me a calculating stare as he brushed muffin crumbs off of his coat, "I see, so you truly mean no harm?"

I shook my head quickly, "Nuh-uh. Earth is not exactly the best of battlegrounds anyway, even if we did mean to fight. The disembodied voice seriously just dumped us with freeloaders and left us to fend for ourselves."

"I see..." Zexion trailed off and continued to give me a stare so calculating that I scooted a little closer to Hideo. Then he rolled his eyes. Evidently when he'd been told of the Lifeblade-bearer, guardian of the Keybearer, he had not been expecting a short scrawny girl that couldn't even take a stare.

Definite blow to the ego.

My insomnia had slowly deteriorated during the conversation and I now stood, stretching my arms high above my head, "Well, I'm going to bed now. Zexion, if you need anything, make Axel get it."

"Hey!"

The tiny smirk that graced Zexion's face made me relax a little from the tension that had built up when he was staring at me, "I'll be sure to do that."

* * *

There was a hesitant knock on my door. I moaned and rolled over in bed, cracking one eye open to stare at my alarm clock. 6:30 A.M. "Someone had better have one heck of a reason to be waking me up." I said only loud enough to be heard by the person on the other side of the door. 

Zexion opened the door and stepped inside, crossed his arms, and gave me an even stare, "I need to get the layout of the town."

I stared at him incredulously, "You want to go now!?"

"The sooner the better."

I threw a nearby paperweight at him- easily dodged- and buried my face in my pillow, "Nothing even opens till about ten, and I'm not even able to drive. If you want to go somewhere, wake Hideo up at this sacrilegious hour and let me sleep."

I could feel his impatient glare on my back before he sighed and left the room, closing the door softly. You know those people that can't get back to sleep after they've woken up? I'm not one of them.

I drew the turquoise comforter up to my chin, wrapped my arms around my favorite cow plushie, snuggled deeper into my pillow, and was once again on the road to dreamland.

* * *

Zexion softly closed the door, only to find Axel leaning against hallway cabinets. He had to admit, if Axel hadn't been so unmistakable, he'd have had to look twice. The red head was dressed in a dark gray muscle shirt with ragged sleeves and a pair of everyday blue jeans, quite a difference from the trademark Organization XIII cloak. 

Axel glanced his way, his face unreadable, "Well? What do you think?"

"They're... not what I expected." Zexion struggled for the choice of words he wanted. "The legends all make her out to be some magnificent protector- and the Keybearer a great warrior." He scoffed. "I know now the she is just a child, so is her friend, Ashley. That boy, Hideo, however, seems a potential warrior. Are you sure she's the one?" He glanced back to the girl's door. The only thing adorning it was a paper with the quotes:

_"I'm taking the middle road."_

_"You mean the twilight road to darkness?"_

_"No... the road to dawn."_

Axel snorted, pushing off the cabinet, "It makes you wonder, huh?"

Zexion gave him a look, "What do you mean?"

"She's immature," Axel stated bluntly, examining a place in the yellow wall that had clearly been punched in and mended, "And she doesn't know a single sword technique to save her life, but when she fights she can improvise to make it look like she knows what she's doing. Ashley, she's a natural born magic user, no doubt. And Hideo babies his guns like they're made of glass."

Zexion adjusted his weight onto his other foot, crossed his arms, and raised an eyebrow, and indicator Axel should continue. The fire-manipulator was rarely deep, and it often paid to listen to him when he was.

"My point," Axel turned and looked Zexion dead in the eye, "They're not just kids, they're _warriors_ that choose to hang onto the mentality of their age, their personalities, _themselves_. That's more than we can say, Zexy."

Zexion's face was blank, "Why are you defending them?"

Axel scratched the back of his head, "That's... kind of what I was running off earlier when I talked about their personalities. They're just so... human. Whole."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Zexion interrupted.

Axel gave him a wry grin, "Tell me, Zexy. What happens to Nobodies when they get cut?"

Zexion's eye narrowed, why was Axel asking such an odd question? He'd been chased by a knife-wielding Xaldin often enough for disturbing the kitchen to know, "Black wisps."

Axel nodded, "Exactly, but after 24 hours with these people..." He drew his other hand from his pocket and removed the glove, showing Zexion the slightly red bandage, "Blood. Mixed with black wisps."

Zexion's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

* * *

I woke at my own pace this time, laying in bed for about an hour after I regained consciousness to slowly greet the living world. I rolled out of bed at around eleven and changed into a black shirt and brown cargo pants, fiddling with my necklace as I turned on my computer out of habit and stepped out of my room- after running a brush through the gnarls of my hair. 

I was greeted by the following sounds.

"No! 'Yoko Kurama', not 'Rose Whip'! No, no, NOOOOOO! Curse you, Zexion! Curse yoooouuuuuu!"

"Hmph."

I stepped into the living room, alit in green from the sunlight reflecting off the walls. Zexion had commandeered the favorite chair while Ashley sat at the automon (large cushy foot-rest big enough for another seat) at his feet, currently turned and shaking a fist at him. Axel and Demyx were sitting on the couch and Hideo had kicked up his feet on the love seat and was currently napping, with his eyes shut this time, thankfully.

From what I could gather, Ashley had challenged Zexion to a battle on 'Dark Tournament' and Zexion merely was humoring her. He had beaten the tar out of Ashley's character (Kurama) with his (Karasu).

I took a seat next to Axel, "Wha'd I miss?"

He held his hands up, "In my defense, I did warn her that taking on Zexion at a tournament game was suicide."

* * *

Neassa: ((shrugs)) Seemed like a good place to stop it. I need a few ideas, btw, people. And this chappy is dedicated to Polish, 'cause she dropped a review on almost every chapter of 'YNKWWH' as she read through it, awesome, long, amusing reviews that told me her favorite parts and opinions of them in the chapter, to boot. Those reviews are such a treat. Not that I don't like other reviews too! PLEASE REVIEW! I LOVE ALL REVIEWS, HONEST! I LOVE ALL OF YOU!!! 


	13. TRAINING?

Hallo peoples! I know what you're thinking, 'Le gasp! She updated and it hasn't been a month yet!' Yeah, yeah, I know. I just felt like writing. Anyhoo, I was thinking, if any aspiring artists out there would like to do fanart for this story I would love you forever, no seriously. I would post the link on my profile page and everything, just a thought for those few artists out there that make me look upon my stick peoples with shame.

On with the chap!

* * *

It had been two days since Zexion had come to the house and he had been properly outfitted in a baggy black hoodie and a pair of blue jeans. He had also far outstayed his non-existant welcome when it came to waking me up early and making me feel stupid. 

But it wasn't until Tuesday that he really crossed the line.

"I think I should show you how to fight."

I snorted Fresca out my nose and choked on it at the same time. Ever done that? Well here's something you should know if you've never had Fresca. It's a grapefruit flavored soda. Basically carbonated citrus. Snorting that out your nose is _not_ pleasant.

We were all sitting around the table for breakfast, pancakes as it were, when Zexy had tossed that little comment up in the wind. Axel thumped me, hard, on the back a few times until I could breathe again. Zexion just stared as though he could care less whether or not I keeled over. The entire table was silent, like the calm before I snapped and went on a killing rampage.

"You _what?!_" I wheezed, "I can fight just _fine_, _pretty boy_!" And out came my little nickname for Zexy, you gotta admit, I can't be blamed.

He narrowed his visible eye, "You can _improvise_." He corrected, "That's not fighting, and swinging your blade around and hoping to hit something is not going to help you when the heartless attack again. Hideo is fine," It was universally known at this point whenever we made Hideo too mad, he went and blew off steam, training at the gun course. "And Ashley is new to her magic, you two need the most training."

I seethed silently. It was true, we'd had a few clashes with the heartless in the past two days, but nothing too severe and definitely not as large a force as the first skirmish. "I've never seen you fight, how do I know that you know what you're doing?"

Zexion sniffed in disdain, "I've trained with many weapons," I eyed his thin frame with disbelief at that remark, "Believe me, to the trained eye, your swordsmanship is pathetic."

Self-restraint? 'Tis but a fond memory, I assure you.

"**THAT'S IT!**" I roared, standing up so fast I knocked my chair over, "If you're so high and mighty, let's spar!"

Axel's eyes widened and he grabbed my arm, trying to force me back down, "LB-girl, that's a _horrible_ id-"

I smacked his hand away and stormed into the backyard, apparently my logic had taken leave for an indefinite ammount of time. I grabbed a 2x4 in the corner of the yard and tossed one to Zexion, who'd followed my outside. Everyone else scrambled onto the jungle-gym to get a good seat.

It was dead silent. Nothing was heard but the wind whistling in the trees next door. A tumbleweed rolled across the backyard. I raised an eyebrow at it. Funny, tumbleweeds didn't usually show up 'till September or October-

Zexion struck without remorse in that instant. His makeshift sword blurred in a complex overhead slash and I yelped, snapped from my distraction. Only a leap backwards kept my skull from being cracked open. I felt the air disturbed by the sword toussel my bangs a bit and hurriedly brought my own sword up to parry the nobody's next attack.

He continued, his calm face horribly contradicted by his savage onslaught. I only just barely dodged or blocked the majority of his attacks, the ones I didn't block left me aching.

This was going to hurt in the morning.

I was constanly pushed backwards, being forced to defend. He twisted out of a block and brought his sword crashing down on my left shoulder and I hissed air through my teeth to keep from crying out. Can't let Zexy know he did something right now can I? My ego was gonna get me killed...

Scratch my previous statement, this was going to hurt _now_.

My left arm fell limp and useless to my side, I didn't think anything was broken, but if I used that arm I would probably only make things worse. As I only had my right hand to steady my sword now, more hits found their marks despite my (weak) defenses.

Zexion's 2x4 connected solidly with my skull, knocking me onto my back and causing me to see stars. I shook my head to clear my sight and saw wood moving right towards my head. I squeezed my eyes shut in anticipation and fear.

I heard a thud right by my left ear. I blinked and looked up to see Zexion hovering over me, he had an 'I-told-you-so' smirk on his face as he leaned on the makeshift sword imbedded in the gound right by my head.

"Your training begins first thing in the morning." He informed me, wresting the wood out of the ground and tossing it back into the pile it came from. He turned and walked casually back into the house, not even winded as I sat there, breathing hard and feeling like I might die.

I took Ashley's proffered hand and hoisted myself up, ignoring the parts of my body that screamed out in prostest. Though my body hurt, my ego was damaged irrepairably.

"You realize you just just pwned by a pretty boy, right?"

And Axel was _not_ helping in the slightest.

* * *

I was rudely awakened by a hand shaking my shoulder roughly, "Wake up." The voice was cold and steely. 

I woke, facing my windows to see it wasn't even dawn yet. I rubbed my eyes and decided whoever woke me up wasn't smart enough to live much longer and was about to summon my blade when a hand clamped over mine, forcing my fingers into a fist so I couldn't summon it, "Don't even think about it."

I blinked recognizing the voice at last. I gave Zexion the most venomous Death Glare I could muster, he appeared immune, "Get dressed and meet me outside in fifteen minutes."

After Zexion left I locked the door, moved my dresser in front of it, put in earplugs I had stolen from my sister, and went back to sleep. It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when ice cold water was poured over my head. I gasped and shot up, Zexion was standing there with a lime green sand bucket that was now empty, "Strike one. You have five minutes."

I groaned an flopped back onto my pillows, my worst nightmare was being realized.

* * *

Aaaand... there you have, I meant to get this up sooner, but for once one of my beta was being lazy. ((sigh)) Not my fault! God bless and PLEASE REVIEW! 


	14. The Plot Thickens!

Mwuahahahaaa! I'm back, and I am pleased to say, this chap is fifty percent longer than most. Yays! Read on! And thankees to the one and only person who responded to my call for fanart. I shall be putting it on my profile, posthaste. Or whenever I stop procrastinating. Whichever comes first. Read on!

On with the chap!

* * *

"Twenty more!" 

"WHAT?! I just did twenty!"

"No you didn't! At best that effort measured five, start pushing!"

Let's make one thing abundantly clear right now. Guys, they have upper body strength. They wake up in the morning and say, 'Hey, cool, I have abs.' Girls, they have no upper body strength. They wake up in the morning and say, 'Aw, crap, I gained fifteen pounds.'.

Do you see the picture I am painting for you?

So there I was, doing pathetic pushups and spending more time on the ground than I did up. As for my arms, can you say 'Ow'? They felt like dryer lint for all the worth they were.

Guess what Zexion thought would be fun? Dropping three dictionaries on my back and telling me to go faster! So long Texas, I am sure to die soon, but hey, we had some laughs. GG, Texas, GG.

After my arms were sufficiently useless, I had to run ten laps around the elementary school and the pond that was next to it. With weights strapped to my ankles. I am proud to say, I got through two laps before being reduced to stumbling every five steps.

I think I'm beginning to see why Zexy wanted me to train. After my seventh pathetic lap -I'm not sure how he did it- Wyverns came out of nowhere and started chasing me around school.

It was only later that Hideo deemed it important to tell me that Zexion's power was illusion (They never made it clear in CoM).

Thanks, Hideo. Remind me to put a rattlesnake in your sleeping bag.

Next I was dragged to the elementary school playground's monkey bars and told to do pull-ups.

I gave pretty boy a incredulous look. He grinned his secretive, sadistic little grin and hefted a dictionary. I got to pulling.

I was fairly sure Ashley was having a much easier time than I was.

* * *

"CURSE YOU FIRE! CUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRSSSSSEEEE YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!" 

Ashley had also been having an eventful training session, after proving herself in the realm of water and thunder magic, she moved on to fire and aero.

Needless to say, it wasn't going so well.

Demyx was about to explode, which is quite a thing to say about a water elemental.

"You can't even make a spark!" He shouted. His mullet was disheveled and his eyes bloodshot, you'd think he'd pulled an all-nighter instead of and hour trying to teach Ashley to set things on fire. It didn't make things better that Axel refused to help.

"Don't you think I know that?!" Ashley shouted right back. She took a couple of deep breaths. "Can we please move on to white magic?"

Demyx looked about with shifty eyes, "I won't tell Zexy if you won't."

"Deal!"

* * *

After Zexion told me training was finally over, I dropped to the playground's pebbled surface intent on sleeping for the rest of the day. I didn't care if there were snakes around or if the ground was uncomfortable, I was tired, darnit! 

I could practically hear the eye roll in Zexion's voice, "Get up."

"Nuuuu..."

"We're going grocery shopping."

Growled a little bit and turned over attempting to tune him out, "We have food."

"You have ramen and pancake mix. We're getting vegetables."

I groaned and stared up at him through slitted eyes, "I'm not moving, you can't make me. Even if I didn't feel like a decomposing zombie," Zexion winced a little at that mental image, "there's no way I'm going into United sweating like a pig. I may not wear make up or wear sequins, but I have my pride. No."

He just smirked.

He leaned down and grabbed my ankle. I didn't know what Zexion thought he was doing until he stated walking towards the United that could be seen from the playground. That is, until I felt the pebbles begin to scrape against my arms. Then I realized what he was up to.

"Are you daft?!"

No answer.

"You're gonna drag me there?!"

Still no answer.

That was capital 'b' Bad! The way to United was through a rock, snake, sticker grass, and burr infested ditch. Then we had to walk along a busy street. A street the biggest gossip in my school was learning how to drive on.

"Okay, okay I give! I'll go!"

He stopped and smirked, "Thought so." He dropped my leg, the guys wasn't even winded and he'd drug me maybe fifty feet. I glared at him before I stood, wincing at I felt the scratches on my arms, the leg that was dragging on the ground, and my back, where a few stray pebbles had snuck under my T-shirt.

"I really hate you."

He smirked again, the guy was having way to much fun with this. We trudged to United and I wondered whether it was a good or bad thing that I couldn't feel my legs. The heat was also annoying. Yes I said heat. Something about West Texas is that if you don't like the weather you can just stick around and it's bound to change within the week.

I hated the looks I got when we got to the store. Zexion was turning the heads of every single female in the place and most of the taken ones. In a muscle shirt and a pair of jeans, I knew he'd get attention, but I had no idea he'd get that much.

I solemnly swore to burn everything in the house that was his size except a frilly pink tutu I knew Jamie had stashed away, he could wear that and people would think he was a girl. Or someone escaped from the asylum. Either way, problem solved.

I, on the other hand, was dusty from my trip through the pebbles and my hair was probably a rat's nest, not to mention what I probably smelled like after that work out. Ew.

Zexion walked up to some potatoes and I nearly gagged. I. Hate. Potatoes. And anything made from them. I grabbed his shoulders and turned him in the direction of the carrots. I can deal with carrots, just not potatoes. Blech.

He rolled his eyes at me and turned right back to the potatoes, picking out a few one that didn't look like they were covered in too many pesticides. He continued to move through the produce section- selecting potatoes, beets, turnips, radishes, brussel sprouts, even a few leeks.

He didn't even glance at the carrots. Jerk.

Zexion moved on to the meat section, when I saw he was only looking at fish, I wanted to cry. I hate seafood. Yes, I'm a picky eater, live with it.

By the time we checked out, the cart was filled with every type of natural food I knew and even a few I didn't. Before we left I grabbed a few packages of pocky, there wasn't that much selection, the only had the chocolate kind. I shot a look to Zexion, daring him to argue so I could go all angry female on him. He didn't. Good for him.

The second me stepped outside, out arms loaded with the food (we had to walk home, I was sure it was some kind of sinister form of training), the sky opened up and rain soaked us to the bone. The weather was so bipolar...

I seethed. I was angry, so angry I wanted nothing more than to hunt down anyone who ever so much as thought something that would make me mad and beat them to pulp, but I didn't.

Instead, I took a deep breath, threw my bags at Zexion (he didn't care, by this time he already had a swarm of females ready to step in front of a semi for a chance to talk to him (especially now that he was wet), he would have no problem with extra baggage). I ran back to the playground.

It took a while, not to mention the fierce burning in my legs, but I made it to the swings. I liked swinging. It helps to clear the mind. Pretty soon I was so high off the ground I was surprised I didn't get struck by lightning or slip out of my wet swing and fall to my early demise.

I didn't know what I'd hoped to accomplish by running off, but I definitely needed to clear my head, which is just was I did. I then started home, I knew only one thing that would make me ecstatic at that moment.

Ten minutes later I sighed in bliss as I slid into the hot water of the bath I'd drawn. AH yes, this was truly contentment.

* * *

Zexion stared. 

On the way back to the Lifeblade girl's house, he'd cut his leg on a nail sticking out from a nearby fence. When he'd rolled up his pants-leg to cast a quick cure spell on the wound, he froze.

The cut was deep and long. Black wisps escaped rapidly, but that wasn't why he was staring. Oozing down towards his ankle, standing out starkly against his creamy white skin...

... were several drops of blood.

* * *

... GASPETH!!! The plot thickens! 

I loves you all, my fantabulous reviewers! ((huggles reviewers)) So I shall try to update faster! But please, REVIEW!


	15. Croquet

Neassa: I'm sorry, _sorry_, _sorry_ it took so long! I've been meaning to do this for ages! Love for my faithful reviewers and the artist who answered my shoutout for fanart, your (wonderful) work is now on my profile page.

On with the chap!

* * *

I stared at the mallet in my hands, then back to Zexion. Mallet. Zexy. Mallet, Zexy, mallet, Zexy, mallet, Zexy.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"

We were all gathered in the ditch by my house and trying to figures out why Zexy would do this to us. He expected us to play croquet. _Croquet._

**_Everyone who knows what croquet is and how to play, skip down to the three dots._**

Now, croquet is a boring, boring, frustrating, boring, and annoying sport the rich people used to play. It involves the players hitting wooden balls with wooden mallets through a course of hoops called wickets, hitting a stick, and then going back to the start in the opposite direction. Players tell which ball is theirs because the balls and their mallet partner have colored stripes on them.

**_Three dots..._**

Hideo stared in disgust at a dark blue mallet in his hands, "_Why?_"

Zexion leaned on his silver mallet, "This game helps to practice accuracy, energy exertion and energy conservation. You hit the ball too hard you go too far, too soft and you barely move. Same thing with fighting. If you use all your strength whenever you fight, the worthless fighters will eat up your strength before you really need it. Knowledge of how and when to use your energy is just as important as power."

Axel scoffed and tossed his red ball up and down in the air. He was agitated because he'd been strictly forbade from using fire in the ditch. There was so much dead grass, even a spark could light up the entire field and the elementary school next to it in minutes.

Ah, the joys of living in Texas.

"Alright!" Ashley cried, twirling her mallet and almost hitting Demyx in the head, "Let's get this party started!"

* * *

**Thirty Minutes Later**

* * *

"Bless you, Zexion. Bless you and your strange methods of training." I was dead serious as I said this. Why? Zexion had done the impossible. 

He'd found something Hideo was bad at.

We'd had to retrieve Hideo's dark blue ball from three backyards so far and had to give money to two irate families with broken windows. I guess constantly using a gun had made Hideo iffy on physical force needed to do something.

He glared at me and slapped me upside the head as he went to retrieve his ball from yet another backyard. I smirked to myself.

The backyard had three attack dogs.

* * *

"We're never playing croquet again." Hideo announced as he towel-dried his hair, causing the dark strands to stick out in all different directions. He'd had to take a shower after retrieving his ball because- in an effort to escape the attack dogs- he'd snagged the leg of his jeans on a fence and face-planted in dust and gravel. 

I'd stolen Jamie's camera to take plenty of blackmail pictures.

Zexion hid a smirk behind his hand, "Well, at least we should be glad you only use guns."

Hideo snorted in resentment and claimed the chair in the living room, though I noticed the slightly embarrassed flush that darkened his already dark skin. I took another picture.

I turned to enter the kitchen and immediately turned to my left went out the door out to the backyard, ignored the dogs vying for my attention, and took a seat on the swing set.

I couldn't help it, Ashley and Demyx were in the kitchen, attempting to make grilled cheese. Normally I would have found it amusing, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to see how close those two were becoming.

Not that I was opposed to it; secretly I found it kind of cute. But the thought of them together made my chest tighten, because it made me think of Riku. I tried not to, to keep up the happy front that my family and friends were so used to, but I missed him so much more than I let on.

All things considered it was strange, I hadn't known him very long (though it seemed like longer because he'd intrigued me ever since I'd played Kingdom Hearts for the first time), I shouldn't miss him as much as I did.

But I did, and the recent run in with the cloaked figure in the mall had only focused my thoughts on him more. Had it really been him? He had the necklace I gave him, I'd like to think Riku wouldn't have given it to anyone else.

I sighed as I swung in my backyard, the camera around my neck jostling against my chest, reminding me of the strange feeling there. I had to think of something else, trying to think it through wasn't working.

My distraction came in the form of Axel bursting through the back door with a gleaming smile on his face, "Hey, LB girl! Demyx set the pan on fire!"

I jumped from the swing in mid ascent, the momentum carrying me forward I landed, jarring my ankles slightly, and followed Axel inside, embracing my distraction with open arms.

* * *

He watched her run inside, his lips turned down in a thoughtful frown.

She'd been upset, but why? Physically she was perfectly fine, and none of the nobodies had down anything that would upset her to that degree, he was sure of it. And even if they had upset her, she'd have no problem letting them know, she was hiding this discomfort.

Hideo turned a blind eye to it, the only way he would get involved would be if it got out of hand, the cloaked figure was sure of that. Ashley was going so far as to cover for her friend, giving her easy outs whenever she was stumped with a decision.

He pretended not to notice the way she'd fingered the necklace he'd given her subconsciously, after all it didn't mean anything right? He squashed the little voice that screamed, 'Yes, it means we know exactly what- _who_ she was thinking about.'

He couldn't think like that, couldn't afford to give himself false hope.

He couldn't let her see him like this.

* * *

Neassa: Yes, I tried to incorporate a little bit of romance; let me know if I bombed it. Yes this was a filler I will be proceeding with the plot shortly, but this was the very best place to end the chapter to get maximum impact, I need feedback to know if I got it right. Yes, I know I totally ignored the Chain of Memories timeline; I'll come up with an explaination later, hopefully. Yes, I love my reviewers, very, very much. God Bless You All!!! Please Review!


	16. Antis

Yeah, I updated, surprising, huh? Sorry it's not as long as I wanted it to be, but it's an update, right? By the way, this chapter is dedicated to Shadowrunner240 who sent me a pretty awesome, encouraging message that convinced me to get off my butt and actually write something. Kudos for them! You should all send them gift baskets.

That reminds me:

**_I have a poll on my profile page that everyone desperately needs to check out, it's vital to this story's survival! It's up until my next update._**

On with the chap!

* * *

I grimaced at my face in the mirror. I had smudges of soot all over my face and my hair was singed randomly. You'd think that with Demyx being a water elemental, he could put out a small kitchen fire.

I sighed and pulled my hair into a ponytail. I grabbed a washcloth from the rod nearby and soaked it with cold water. After scrubbing my face so hard it turned pink I decided to leave my hair up and just walked into the living room.

I plopped down on the loveseat and glared at Demyx, who grinned at me sheepishly. I peeked through the window into the kitchen and saw the blackened mess that was once the cabinetry.

I picked up a throw pillow and shoved it over my face, fully intending to smother myself. It was promptly ripped away and Hideo glared down at me.

"Nice try, but no. Take a look outside."

I frowned, but walked to the front door and looked outside, only to leap backwards.

My lawn was covered in darkness. It was like water, slowly creeping uphill towards the door.

I yelled in frustration, about ready to tear out my own hair, "Don't I ever get a flipping break?"

"Of course not," Zexion so kindly informed me, "You're the Lifeblade-bearer, when the keybearer is not present, it is your sworn duty to protect the world from the heartless."

"Yeah? Well I QUIT!" I threw my katana at him (he caught it) and stormed towards my room. A flash of light blinded me and a weight settled into my hand. I looked down at my blade, eye twitching, "I hate you."

If a piece of metal could look smug, it was doing a swell job.

"Why don't you blow off some of that anger by fighting off the heartless that are trying to swarm the house?" Axel quipped from the door, chakrams in hand.

"Y'know, I think I'll do that."

We ran outside, but this darkness was strange. The second my foot touched it, a six foot diameter of darkness began to form into something solid. It grew and the next thing I knew I was staring into bright yellow eyes. A dark reflection of myself stared back at me.

"It's antis!" I shouted to the others, before having to block an attack from anti-me.

Apparently, antis are stronger and faster than the original. I noticed this as I parried a blow from the dark blade of my anti-self. I leapt backward to avoid a rapid thrust and dodged to one side when my anti slashed downward.

My eyes widened, I didn't used to be able to do those things. Usually my reflexes didn't take care of dodges. At a brief lull in the battle I glanced at Zexion, who was fighting his own anti with some kind of book. Could his training really be working as well as this.

I parried and countered yet another attack, this time catching my anti's shoulder. In the time it took to recover I twisted and plunged my katana straight through its heart.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment as I stared into my anti's yellow eyes. Then it began to disolve around my sword, into a puddle of darkness on the ground, wisping away. I caught Zexion's eye and he gave me the slightest of nods as I stood panting in the puddle of darkness.

I swelled with pride for the briefest of moments until I noticed something was being uncovered as the darkness melted away at my feet.

I crouched down, ignoring the battles raging around me and picked up a small slip of paper. I brushed it off with the back of my hand and was able to read it clearly. It appeared to be a season's pass to Six Flags over Texas, a theme park in Dallas.

A grin slowly stretched over my face as the battles around me drew to there conclusion.

"What are these?" Axel held up his own slip of paper, aparrently each of the antis had dropped one.

I ignored him and locked gazes with Ashley, "You know what this means, don't you?"

She stared at me blankly for a moment before an evil grin, identical to my own spread over her face.

"_ROAD TRIP!_"

* * *

"Absolutely not."

In case you hadn't figured it out by now, Zexion was against us going on the road trip. I honestly couldn't see why, except for the fact that he'd have to cope with Dallas humidity and with his pasty white man skin he'd probably get a second degree sunburn, but other than that, there was no reason for him to not want us to go!

"You cannot skip out on your training." He remarked snidely, "You barely defeated your anti."

"Tiny Organization member say WHAT?!" I was starting to see red...

"You know what I'm talking about, I honestly don't know why the Lifeblade would choose someone who has no talent with using it. How you managed to defeat Ansem is beyond me."

"You jerk! I'll scratch your eyes out!" I leapt for Zexy's throat, but was caught and held back by Demyx.

"No, LB girl! If you get too angry you'll turn into the Incredible Hulk!" he insisted.

"Demyx, that's Bruce Banner." Axel corrected.

Demyx blinked, "I thought it applied to everyone."

Hideo was in a corner, laughing at my misery and Ashley was attempting to plot a way to steal a rental car big enough for all of us.

Unable to scratch out Zexy's eyes, I slumped and decided to attempt to reason my way out of this, "C'mon, Zexion! We can train on the way there!"

"And how do you propse to do that?" despite his sarcastic demeanor, Zexion was clearly intrigued.

"Well, you've only been instructing us in physical attacks and such so far, right? What about the psycological and strategic parts of battle? You can instruct us in those on the way! Please!" I brought out my dreaded puppy eyes of doom (trademark) and saw Zexy deeply thinking about the matter.

"Okay, you have a slight point," Zexion conceeded, "But I'm still not totally convinced. Where will we stay?"

"Dude, we got enough money from the heartless to buy a _house_ in Dallas, we can definitely pay a hotel fee."

"How will we get there?"

"My family has a van." Hideo spoke up for the first time in a while, "It's an old piece of junk, but it'll be able to fit all of us."

I blinked slowly, "Hideo, why does your family have a van?"

He glanced briefly in my direction, dark eyes flashing, "When my brothers and I were younger, we used to try to kill eachother on road trips, so our parents bought the van to keep us separate."

Thinking of Hideo's brothers, this explanation made sense.

Zexion sighed in defeat, "Very well."

* * *

Super special awesome plot twist!

Okay, not really and yes, I have been watching Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series recently. And know, this is not just a random trip to Six Flags because I had no idea what to do, it actually has something to do with the plot.

Pretty please REVIEW!!

God Bless!  
Neassa-chan


	17. The Road Trip From Hell

I'm BAAAAACK! ((lightning cracks, thunder booms, possibly an incredibly high-pitched scream is heard))

Sorry for taking so long, you guys, but first I got a job and then I lost inspiration for this story, but i shall prevail! ((strikes a pose)) Anyhoo, everyone forgot my birthday again! ((tear)) And hear I am, slaving away at four in the morning to give you people a half-way decent chapter at four in the morning and no one has the decency to send a litte PM that says, 'Happy Sweet 16!!' I feel so unappreciated!

((slinks off to go sit in her emo corner))

On with the chap!

* * *

I tossed a backpack into the back of the van Hideo had promised after he snuck the keys away from his parents. It was the day after we had been attacked by the antis; neither Ashley nor I wanted to waste time. We made hotel reservations and decided we'd drive for a day, go to Six Flags for another, then drive home. I'd fought tooth and nail to stay for two days but, alas, I'd lost the paper, rock, scissors game that had decided the matter.

A chill slid up my spine, like the feeling you get when you're being watched. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see someone, but saw nothing but the alley that had always been there.

I chewed on the inside of my lower lip thoughtfully as the feeling disappeared, what was that? I shrugged it off with no small amount of effort and pranced back inside to get the plastic sacks we'd shoved the nobodies' clothes in, they weren't important enough to get backpacks.

A half hour later Axel and Demyx were trying to shove a cooler in the back while Ashley was picking her seat, Hideo was pouring over his old Diver's Ed book and muttering about fines under his breath. In the meantime, Zexion and I were having an intense discussion.

"No, _I_ get shotgun you little albino pretty boy."

"No you don't, we need someone competent to read a map so we don't get ourselves lost."

I think I may have started frothing at the mouth, "Are you calling me _incompetent,_ pretty boy?!"

"No."

I blinked, "Oh."

"I'm simply insinuating that you do not have the mental capacity to-"

"DIE!" I leapt for his throat, or at least I would have if Axel hadn't grabbed the end of my ponytail effectively keeping me in place.

"LB girl, if you don't calm down I'll throw all the Fresca out in the middle of the highway..."

And that was how I ended up in the second row of the minivan, next to Axel and in front of Ashley and Demyx, while glaring holes into the back of Zexion's little shotgun-stealing head as he navigated Hideo through the randomness of traffic.

About ten minutes into this lovely little road trip, once we got outside the city limits, Ashley spoke up,  
"I'm bored, let's play I-SPY!"

I turned to stare at her, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah!"

"Ashley, this is Texas, the only stuff you can spy outside a city is oil wells and cotton fields."

She took a look around and her shoulders visibly slumped when she saw that I was right, "Oh."

Demyx jumped in then, "We can play something else!"

"Like what?" Axel was grumpy; he had wanted to wait another hour before we left so he could watch Scrubs. He had become scarily obsessed with that show recently.

I decided to contribute by pulling a deck of cards out of one of the many pockets in my cargo pants, "How about we play cards?"

At the word 'cards' Hideo suffered a mini stroke due to pure horror and the car swerved about wildly for a moment before Zexion stretched over and held the wheel steady until Hideo got a hold on himself again.

I was annoyed because Hideo made me drop the cards all over the place. "Geez!" I snapped at him, picking up the pieces of sturdy paper, "We're not playing Speed or anything and I'm not that bad!"

"Er, right." He said sheepishly, refocusing on the road. Thankfully no cars had been close enough to hit when he had his little seizure and the ones who had seen it were keeping a respectful distance about a mile away.

I sighed and pulled the cup holders down from the middle of the seat and locked it in place between myself and Axel. I began shuffling, "Alright, who wants to play Go Fish and who wants to play Poker?"

Ashley and Demyx went for Go Fish while Axel was all for Poker and betting our TV rights once we got to the hotel on the games. I quickly shot him down and dealt the cards for Go Fish while he sulked.

"Alright," I started, arranging the cards in my hand by numerical value, "Demyx, do you have any nines?"

* * *

"I give up!" I threw my hands in the air, scattering the few cards I was still left holding, "You're cheating somehow, I know it!"

The smirk on Axel's face was befitting of the cat that ate the canary, "Whatever do you mean?"

After Axel had won eight games Ashley and Demyx had given up and started battling Pokémon, Ashley using her DS and Demyx borrowing mine. I had been unwilling to admit defeat, so Axel and I had duked it out for another five games, none of which I had won.

Furious, I turned to Zexion, "Zexy! How is Axel cheating?!"

He didn't even have to look up from the little black book he was reading, "Your cards are reflected on the window above you."

"Huhn?" Was my oh-so dignified response to this new information. I gather my remaining cards and held them like I normally would, then craned my neck to see the window behind me.

Sure enough, the cards were clearly reflected on the tinted glass.

I turned slowly towards Axel, who was pressed against the back of his door, grinning sheepishly.

"Axel."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to kill you."

Suddenly brick walls surrounded me. I blinked and placed a hand on it, it was cold and rough. The illusion was good, very good. "Zexion." I whined, "That's not fair."

"I won't have any bloodshed right now, though you may feel free to kill him later. If you were to dismember him in the car, it would get stained and the smell of... blood hurts my nose. If the only way to accomplish this is by keeping you in isolation, so be it. You've been quite violent today."

I stuck my tongue out at him; I knew he would see it. No one but me could see the illusion, of that I was sure. Illusions target the brain. The wall wasn't really there, but my brain told me it was because that was what the power of illusion did. It was very inconvenient.

"I'll be good, promise."

There was silence as he deliberated on this, but the walls disappeared quickly. I guessed the illusion was so strong that it took a lot of effort to keep it going. I looked around, Ashley and Demyx were still absorbed in their Pokémon game and Axel was fascinated by a 20 Q game he found.

No one seemed to have heard the exchange between Zexion and myself, which must have been another part of the illusion.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair.

This was going to be the road trip from hell.

* * *

((still in her emo corner))

Riku: ((pops out of nowhere)) Here is where the authoress would say, "I'll try to update sooner, but school is going to start in a couple of weeks, so don't hold your breath. PLEASE REVIEW AND GOD BLESS!!"

Till next time!,  
Neassa-chan


	18. Serious Conversations in Burger King

Neassa: Hallo, friends and assorted peons!

Readers: ((glare))

Neassa: ((huffs)) Honestly! Is that anyway to treat someone who had decided to crank out another update despite her pounding headache? I thought not. Anyhoo, I thought I might as well inform you all of the return of the random Authoress Notes of DOOM! before and after every chapter. If it bugs you blame my friend pickamandy, it was her idea.

Various Characters that make appearances: ((plotting pickamandy's ultimate demise))

Neassa: Anyhow, as many of my long time readers know, random characters appear in these notes because I feel like being random. I'd like to introduce a new one. Ladies and gentlemen... Murtagh!

Murtagh: ((poofs into existence)) What the-?

Neassa: SQUEEE! ((glomps Murtagh))

Ed: ((sweatdrops)) Poor guy.

Haru: ((blinks slowly)) She actually glomped someone...

Neassa: ((clinging on Murtagh's back like a rabid monkey)) On with the chap!

Murtagh: Help!

* * *

I was bored again. The drive had lasted four hours so far and nothing of significance had happened, aside from Zexion's impromptu illusion. I felt like banging my head against the window. I'd already significantly reduced my hearing capability by blasting my MP3 player into my ears for the last hour or two.

I glance at the clock. It was about two in the afternoon. Four more hours... or maybe three, if we didn't stop very often. However, that probably wouldn't happen with what I planned to do.

I leaned forward and put my chin on the shoulder of Hideo's seat, summoning the most pitiful expression I could to my face.

"Hideo?" I sounded like a pitiful child.

His right eye twitched, but he didn't look away from the road, "What?" he snapped. I was now aware of Zexion watching from the corner of his eye as well as everyone behind me. I smirked mentally and deepened my charade.

I stuck by lower lip out in a pout and put a little bit of whine in my voice, "I'm hungry."

His eye twitched again, "There are snacks in the back."

"But I want _food!_"

He looked like he'd rather crash the van than continue the conversation so I turned my act on Zexion, "Zexy, where's the nearest town?"

He replied without having to look at the map, "Three minutes."

My piteous gaze went back to Hideo, "Hideo? Can we stop in the next town and get real food?"

"McDonald's is hardly real food."

"I don't want McDonald's."

I seriously was beginning to think that the eye twitch was a problem; he waited for me to continue.

"I was thinking more along the lines of Burger King actually-"

"Argh!"

* * *

I smiled as I took the tray loaded with greasy and fried food to the large table in the corner of Burger King, Demyx carrying a second tray behind me.

I plunked my tray down on the table and retrieved my food and fries from it before digging in. Everyone else did likewise; apparently they were as ravenous as I was. Hideo had, until just then, had his head in his hands and been muttering under his breath.

A thought struck me then, a question that had been bugging my subconscious for quite awhile and had only just deigned itself to surface in my thoughts. Unfortunately, I had just taken a large bite out of my cheeseburger and I had to chew and swallow before asking Zexion or I would choke.

After I swallowed and sipped a bit of my Sprite I asked Zexion straight out, not thinking to sugarcoat my words, "Zexion, what makes Nobodies different from humans?" I knew what he would say, but this was leading up to my question as well as being the question I ultimately wanted to ask. Thinking about it that way made my head hurt.

The table went dead silent as everyone stopped eating. Demyx had paused in the action of swallowing and started choking as a result. Hideo thumped him on the back until he cleared his throat.

Zexion put down his chicken sandwich, "It's sad that the one meant to protect the Keyblade bearer knows so little."

I bristled at his bitter tone, but fought down the urge to do something rash.

He raised his visible slate grey eye to study me; it was only a few shades darker than his hair, "Nobodies are the shell that is left behind when a heartless is created of someone with a strong will. We in the Organization have independent thought and higher understanding of the worlds than our lesser versions, however. In spite of that, because of our lack of hearts we cannot feel emotion. We remember what it was like though, some of us better than most." His eyes flickered to Axel, and then to Demyx.

"Zexion, Nobodies need to eat and sleep, right?"

One stormy eyebrow rose. "Yes."

"Do you feel pain?"

He scoffed, "Of course."

"Do you regret things?"

His expression clouded, "More than you can imagine."

"Do you fear death?"

His eye narrowed as he glared at me, "We cannot feel emotion." Was all he said, but I saw Demyx flinch out of the corner of my eye and nearly smiled because he confirmed what I thought. The water user, at least, was afraid of death.

"Do you want things?"

The illusionist suddenly slapped his hands against the table and rose out of his seat, glaring down at me, his expression furious, "Yes, you stupid girl! We want our hearts back more than anything, we regret what we did to lose them, there is an ache in our chests where our hearts are supposed to be, an ache that does not fade over time! You have the audacity to ask us about these things as though they mean nothing?!"

For once, I didn't rise to the challenge of arguing with Zexion. He had just proven my point.

With cool-minded intensity that would have scared me under any other circumstances I looked Zexion in the eye, "You just admitted to feeling exhaustion, pain, hunger-" My eyes flitted briefly to Demyx _"fear-,_ regret, which is a kind of sadness, and longing. You've also just made a stunning show that you can feel quite a bit of anger and I'm also guessing you feel frustration at your predicament." I toyed with an empty straw wrapper, "How then, Zexion, can you insist you have no emotion?"

He looked dumbfounded for a moment before glaring at me in such a frightening manner that nearly all of my confidence left me, "Your world has something strange about it that makes us feel as if we have emotions again, but that is an illusion that I have yet to figure out, nothing more."

I could feel the warm bubble of fury rising in my chest and welcomed it, for it made me think more clearly, "Would you open your eyes?" I snapped, standing as he did to look him in the eyes at his level, or perhaps a bit above his level, I _was_ taller than him. "Fear, sadness, longing, anger, they're all negative emotions, but how can you deny that you feel them, even if it was only recently that you did? The good emotions will come eventually, but even with the bad, where is this fundamental difference between yourselves and humans that you are so sure exists?!

"The heart is something that grows within us as we ourselves grow, is it so hard to believe your body is slowly piecing together your memories to give you a new one? If it is possible, even if it only happens here, in this world that is mostly free of heartless despite the multitudes of people then what of it? Stay and realize it come together or leave and watch it fall apart, if my theory is right then _something_ here is piecing you back together, if you deny it then it will only hinder the process, listen to what I'm saying!" I took a deep breath, it was the most long winded speech I could ever remember giving, not to mention the only one.

_What are the worlds coming to? _I thought wryly, _Giving inspiring speeches is _Sora's _job._ My heart ached as I thought of him. I desperately missed that goofy kid.

Zexion sat back down, "You don't know what you're talking about." He sounded weird, "If the heart could be pieced back together, wouldn't it have already happened to one of us before now? Why should this planet have anything to do with it?"

I couldn't tell whether he was asking me or himself.

Around the table I saw the reactions of the others. Axel was glaring at nothing in particular, Demyx looked positively terrified, but then Ashley took his hand and smiled at him and he forced a smile in return, Hideo looked like he was deeply contemplating something himself.

"Does it matter?" Axel broke the silence, "Whether our hearts are piecing themselves together or not, we won't know for sure for a while. What use does it do yakking about it when we don't know what's going on?"

"I agree with Axel," Ashley spoke up for the first time in a while, "Let's just keep driving and face what may come when it comes," she shrugged, "I for one don't want to ruin this trip with 'What if's when we're supposed to be having fun."

Everyone murmured their various agreements to this and we left to get back on the road, throwing most of our food away as we went. I wasn't the only one who had lost my appetite.

* * *

Neassa: ((blinks, still on Murtagh's back)) Wow, that's the most serious thing I think I've ever written. Fear not, though, 'twas all for advancement of the plot, the humor shall return in the next chapter!

Murtagh: ((considerably disgruntled)) Will you get off of me?!

Neassa: No. ((tightens hold on Murtagh's ribs))

Murtagh: Ghack!

Roy: I feel kind of bad for the guy.

Kyo: Better him then us.

Ed: I second that.

Al: Brother!

Ed: What? It's the truth! Do _you_ want to be in his position?

Al: Well, no...

Ed: See?

Daizy: ((comes flying out of nowhere)) Ed!

Ed: ((ishk tackleglomped))

Yuki: ((sighs)) This is the place where Neassa, if she was not otherwise occupied would say 'God Bless' and beg you endlessly for reviews. Fortunately- or maybe not, for Murtagh- she _is_ otherwise occupied so she cannot yell for your reviews.

Neassa: MINE! ((gnawing on Murtagh's head in a rather rabid fashion))

Murtagh: Give me Eragon! Give me Saphira! Give me Shruikan, Galbatorix, and all the elves in Du Weldenvarden! Give me anything, but this psychotic teenaged girl!


	19. Crudbucket

Dear reviewers, I love you all, but I'm too tired to be witty. This would be longer, but I ran out of inspiration. The only reason it's up today at all is because reading Yargy the Pirate Queen's new chapter inspired me. That, and I knew I'd been neglecting you guys. I grovel! ((falls to floor))

On with the chap!

* * *

"Land!" I cried ecstatically, jumping out of the van. Of course, I immediately tripped over the cement bar in front of it, but let's not sweat the details.

"It wouldn't have taken so long if we didn't have to stop every hour so you could throw up." Hideo sneered, slamming his door.

"Hey!" I leapt up and pointed an accusing finger at him, "_You_ wouldn't buy me Dramamine! That is not _my_ fault."

"It's not mine either! They wouldn't sell it to me! And it's not like _they_ have respectable identification!" Hideo gestured to the Nobodies and Ashley, who were climbing out of the van, Demyx having to support a slightly green Zexion.

"I despise human vehicles!" Zexion was whispering, but I'd never heard a more menacing statement. Scary…

"Alright, everyone get your stuff, I don't want to have to make two trips." Hideo was standing behind the van, the doors wide open to display various backpacks and plastic sacks. I tried not to dwell on how much he looked like my mom on a bad day. It was a disturbing thought.

Ashley and I hung back as the guys got the stuff. Axel raised an eyebrow at us, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Aren't you going to help?"

"Axel, dear," I said sardonically, "This is Texas. In the South, unlike the rest of the country, people have manners. Manners include chivalry. Which means us girls get to use you guys like pack mules."

Ashley snapped her fingers, "Move, slave!"

Demyx was smart, he didn't argue. He just grabbed Ashley's backpack, which probably weighed a grand total of five pounds, she packed light.

That left Axel with mine, as Zexion and Demyx were standing with Hideo. I did not pack light. I packed at least three industrial sized books and my playstation2 and all my games whenever I went _anywhere_ in case of emergency. Like tornadoes, being on just the tail end of Tornado Alley, that wasn't very likely, but it was tornado season… Yes, a playstation will totally help in the event of a tornado. It provides moral support.

Point being, my bag probably weighed somewhere around twenty pounds.

That brings us to Axel and my staring contest.

"…"

"…"

"… now."

"No."

"I shall smite you! You shall be smited!"

"Yeah right."

"Fire and brimstone!" I waved my hand at him, "Fire and brimstone!" On second thought, I probably should have just asked Demyx for help, but it was a matter of pride now!

Axel quirked an eyebrow, "Impressive."

Finally, he got fed up and lifted my backpack. He immediately dropped it again, "What do you have in here?! Bricks?" He unzipped the bag.

"Hey! Don't look in there!" I tried to grab my bag, but he held me back with one hand. It was rather degrading.

Axel pulled something from the backpack, stared at it for a moment, then burst out laughing, "Seriously?!"

"Don't laugh at me!" I shrieked, my voice rising dangerously in octave.

He waved my favorite cow plushie in front of my face, "What, can't sleep without your ittle cow?"

I snatched it from his grasp and cuddled it, "I have to hug something in my sleep and Haru is just the perfect huggable size, is that alright with you?!"

The fire tamer couldn't answer, he was laughing too hard, "H-Haru?! You… ahaha! You named that thing?!"

Desperate times, desperately measures.

After setting Haru carefully back inside the van, I tackled Axel to the asphalt.

"Guys! Help! Get her off me!"

"Should we?" Demyx asked, glancing at the others as I attempted to claw out Axel's eyes.

"Well, he's not actually useful…" Zexion contemplated as Axel pulled my hair. I pulled his in due turn.

Hideo sighed, "We probably should. If they're going to kill each other, I'd rather them do it in a civilized way." I started shrieking high enough to make eardrums bleed as Axel put me in a headlock. "Like laser tag, Val'll have a fighting chance then."

"She bit me! She _bit_ me!"

* * *

I was perusing through the fridge behind the lobby, which was connected to the gift shop, looking for ice cream. I had been successful in the Plushie Battle of '09 and was now downstairs with Zexion, who said that he quite frankly didn't trust me alone.

I thought I found what I was looking for, but didn't get to get a chance to find out because a small weight barreled into me from behind.

"Valerie!"

The momentum had caused my head to slam forward into the shell on eyelevel, knocking it and its contents astray and giving me a monster headache.

I turned to scream at whoever had done me this indignity, but when I had to look down and saw who it was, I grinned instead.

"Hey there, Mandy."

Now, Mandy was a pretty good friend of mine, but she didn't live in the same town, she lived in a little hick town about a half-hour away. Well, when she was driving it was more like fifteen minutes, but you know, whatever. Yeah, I said when she was driving. At seventeen, she was five feet, three inches and as such barely cleared my shoulder.

She was also the best prankster I knew, as well as fluent in sarcasm.

I tugged a piece of her dirty blonde hair, "You got a haircut." Her once medium length hair now hardly hung past her chin.

She rolled her eyes at me. Now, she was proud of her eyes, they were a light blue color with a contrasting navy rim. "You here for Spring Break?"

I shoved my hands in my pockets and assumed an easy going stance, "I'm actually here on business."

The look she gave me was a combination of, 'You've-got-to-be-kidding-me' and, 'I-don't-believe-you'. She could do funny things with her eyebrows and, thus, pull off those kinds of looks.

I glance over at Zexion, who was looking over in apprehension. Mandy followed my gaze and immediately assumed fangirl reaction number 47. One of the lesser known fangirl reactions, number 47 consisted of slapping whoever is nearest you absentmindedly as you stare at the object of your affection with your jaw somewhere around your ankles and an ear to ear grin.

Reaction 47 is not exactly subtle, but it was her favorite.

I stepped out of her slapping range and suddenly an evil plot formed in my brain. I let an evil grin slowly stretch out across my face, "Hey, Mandy? Wanna help me prank him?"I inquired softly.

"You know him?"

"Yup."

"He's cute."

"He's gay."

"Crudbucket. What'd you have in mind?"

((A/N: My inspiration died here, but I persevered so you would have something to chew on. A.K.A. I wanted to make you curious.))

* * *

Fifteen minutes later we'd retrieved Ashley and gathered at a Wallgreens with the help of Mandy's sister's Mustang and GPS system. None of us had a sense of direction.

Mandy was basically using us as pack mules. We didn't argue, she was a veteran prankster, she knew what she was doing. We were in the hair products aisle and I was loaded down with bobby pins and different kinds of foam and styling gel. Ashley had already been the unfortunate bearer of Koolaid, a clown make up kit, a few jump ropes, and glitter.

Upon leaving the check out line, Ashley finally got the courage to ask, "What are we going to do to him?"

The grin on Mandy's face was slightly psychotic, "Oh, nothing permanent."

* * *

There, please review! God Bless!

~*~Neassa-chan


	20. What's That Shiny Thing?

Neassa: I am so sorry, my beloved readers! I have not updated in so long and this chapter is so short! I tried so hard to write a substantial chapter, but my efforts fellt short and as such, you will have to abide with this! I thought you deserved at least something. I fear I've begun to lose readers because of my lack of updates! What shall I do?!

Ed: You could start by actually making a genuine apology that you didn't rehearse before hand.

Neassa: ((punches Ed))

On with the chap!

* * *

Zexion and Hideo sat in the hotel room. Axel and Demyx were in the weight room, having some sort of contest, from which Zexion was absolutely certain at least one would return with some sort of horrific head-injury. Until they could be properly laughed at, he and Hideo would just have to amuse themselves.

"…"

"…"

"…."

"….."

Yeah, that was working well.

Zexion stood up to get the bucket that Ashley had explained was for ice. He was sure he was going to need it when the two other nobodies returned.

"I'm going to get some ice."

A grunt was the only acknowledgment he received as Hideo took out a stack of cards and began to deal a game of Solitaire. He was mildly irritated by this. Wait, irritated?

He shook his head as he stepped out into the hall, these emotions were popping up at the most inconvenient times and causing him no end of grief. If they would just come and stay, or leave for a long enough time to get his head straight, he could probably get a good idea of what was going on with him.

As it was, he was so distracted by his inner soliloquy, that he didn't notice the three figures sneaking up behind him until one of them screamed, "GET HIM!"

He turned and the last thing he saw was sanded wood headed right for his face…

* * *

I gaped down at Zexy, who was lying prostrate and insensible upon the hotel carpet, "I can't believe that actually worked!"

Mandy cackled evilly, tossing aside the baseball bat, "Of course it worked! My plans never fail!"

"Need I remind you of that poor porcupine?"

"Hey, that was as much your fault as mine!"

"You were driving!"

"Not to interrupt this fascinating argument," Ashley drawled, "But oughtn't we get him out of the hallway before someone sees us?"

"Good point," I grabbed Zexion's wrists, "You two, get his legs!"

* * *

When Zexion came to, he was in a janitor's closet, had been lashed to a chair with jump ropes, and Mandy was in the midst of spraying down his hair with a squirt bottle.

"What is the meaning of this?!"

I leaned lazily against the wall as Mandy got out the hair foam and bobby pins, "Payback for waking me up early during a break. Now, don't go easy on the glitter Mandy…"

Her grin was psychotic, "I won't."

Ashley had gone out for food and returned with pizza, looking in surprise as Mandy twisted individual strands of grey hair and pinned them to Zexion's head, "Wow, you're not dead. What are you doing?"

"Curling his hair," She said, getting out the squirt bottle again, "Remember that day Valerie looked like she'd gotten a perm?"

"That was _you_?"

I rolled my eyes skyward, "That took six hours, good thing Zexy's hair is so short."

"_**I will kill you all…**_"

"Hush, Zexy. The grown-ups are talking." He was so going to kill me for this once he got free.

Once, our hiding spot was discovered. The door swung open and a tall, redheaded youth wearing the uniform of one of the hotels employees looked in. His impossibly green eyes took in Zexion's half-curled hair, his hopeful expression, Mandy's handful of foam, Ashley's video camera and finally on me. Then, he flashed a grin, "I don't think I want to know."

"Nope, you really don't."

"Need any help?"

"If you could keep the other employees away from here, that'd be great."

"Gotcha."

Then he just… walked away.

"That was… weird." Ashley stated needlessly.

"Yes, yes it was."

* * *

Neassa: There! Another chapter!

Kyo: A pathetically short chapter!

Neassa: I slay you! ((tackles))

God Bless and PLEASE REVIEW!!!


	21. OMG! AN UPDATE! ONE THAT'S SUPER LONG!

Neassa: Um... Wow. Hi guys!

Neassa: Heheh, if I'd waited two more days, it would have been a years since my last update. Heheh, whoops?

Neassa: Seriously, though, you guys, I love you! I haven't stopped getting reviews for this story and all of your super-nice words have kept me determined to finish it at _some_ point... so I did.

Neassa: No, seriously, I finished this story. I may go back and add an Epilogue, but I might not. This is the last chapter of TWOTDDRMOD. Now, before your pretty little head explode, there **will** be a sequel... at some point. And that story will have a good name that doesn't take ten letters to abbreviate. I will hereby give this to you with the warning that there are probably typos as I wrote this super fast, but I'll go back and fix them later if I see them. Pinky swear.

On with the chap!

* * *

I examined my newly painted nails as Zexy tried (and failed) to escape for the eleventh time. Mandy was vicious when she went after someone's hair. The one major landmark here was that, since she was curling all of his hair, she'd had to pull the part hiding his face back.

Let me tell you, seeing Zexy's whole face is a treat indeed.

I studied my now teal nails and in amusement recalled that, when I'd started painting them, Zexion had started sneezing uncontrollably. It was something to remember if (when) he tried to get back at me for this little escapade. His nose is too sensitive to bear the smell of nail polish.

At the time I'd wondered why he didn't use his power of illusion on us and came up with two reasons. One, being smacked in the head with a baseball bat knocked loose something vital upstairs, and two, he didn't want to use magic in front of Mandy, who had no idea it existed.

Personally, I was opting for one.

"There." Mandy declared, dropping a now empty can of hair spray to the floor. "All done!"

Zexion's hair was all pinned back with gel and glitter worked into every strand and he'd developed an eye twitch, his wrinkled nose showing he was as sensitive to hairspray as nail polish.

I added another mental note to my growing list.

"Now all we have to do is wait overnight."

"Okay," I stood, stretching my stiff limbs, "See you in the morning, Zexy!"

That got his attention, "What? You're just going to leave?" He sounded a bit incredulous.

"Yup."

And with that, I shut the door.

* * *

Apparently the employee who'd found us in the storage closet before had spread the rumor that it was haunted. As most of the maids were superstitious, they avoided it like the plague.

I really needed to find that guy and give him a cookie or something.

As this rumor had circulated the hotel Zexy didn't get out of that linen closet until about ten in the morning.

When he finally managed it… well…

* * *

I _had_ been sleeping peacefully, dreaming of taunting Draco Malfoy from atop a broomstick. I'd like to say that all my training had paid off and I woke up because I knew something was amiss, but I know and you know that I'd be lying.

I woke up because the curtains had stirred and sent a bright beam of light into my eyes. Nothing like Texan sun in the morning. The first thing I noticed was that I'd overslept and that there was no way we were going to beat the lines at Six Flags now. The second thing was the ominous form standing over me holding a giant book.

It's amazing how quickly adrenaline kicks in. In less than a second I was screaming and leaping out of the way of a book aimed at my head. Ashley shot straight up in bed, her hair sticking up in all directions. "Wha-?"

I only hesitated long enough to scream, "He's escaped! EVERY GIRL FOR HERSELF!", and grab my keycards from the night table, before bolting out into the hallway in only my pajamas, closely pursued by Zexion.

Fumbling, I opened the door to the room next door, ducking inside and closing the door just before Zexion reached it. I locked the deadbolt and chained the door before bolting to the other side of the room and leaping on the lump under the covers, "Hideo! Save me!"

It took Hideo a moment to answer because he was trying to draw air back into his body. Fortunately, I'd woken up Axel with my entrance and he was perfectly capable of speech, "What the…?"

Just then the door that connected our two rooms, which I'd stupidly forgotten to lock, exploded inward, admitting Zexion, who looked appropriately threatening with a glare that could probably skin me alive if it were anymore fierce…

Axel burst out laughing.

… It probably would have been much scarier if it weren't for the glittering afro that had become of his hair. Honestly, Mandy had outdone herself and I was suddenly immensely pleased that she was already on the road, far, far away from Zexion's wrath.

I didn't think it was possible for Zexion to look anymore undignified…. Until he blushed all the way to the tips of his ears. He quickly used his illusion powers to hide his disheveled appearance, but it didn't help because, as Hideo put it now that he'd regained use of his lungs, "What has been seen cannot be unseen."

Zexion seemed to weigh two options in his head before opting to stalk out of the room, presumably in search of a shower, but not before he looked me right in the eye and said, quite calmly, given the circumstances, "Vengeance will be mine."

* * *

Understandably, I refused to have Zexion sit behind me as we rode in the van to Six Flags. I kept a cautious eye on him at all times; making sure Demyx stayed between the two of us, since going through Demyx to get to me would be the equivalent of kicking a puppy.

"Hopefully we'll be able to find parking," Ashley mused, sitting in the back with Axel, "I don't want to walk that far if it gets too hot."

"I… don't think that will be a problem," Hideo said as we pulled up to the park. I glanced out the window to see what he meant and blanched.

"There's… no one here."

There was eerie silence as we rolled right up to the main entrance and parked. "It's open," Hideo said, shifting into 'Park'.

"There are two options here," Zexion, sounding much more like himself than the homicidal maniac that had chased me out of bed that morning. "First, for some reason no one other than us decided to come to this 'park' today. Second, something sinister is going on."

"Second one seems most likely," Axel said tensely, flexing his fingers as though he longed to summon his chakrams.

"Well, what are we going to do?" Demyx asked.

Zexion opened his door, "Obviously, we find out which of the two it is."

* * *

Going into the park, we were understandably wary, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary, other than the lack of people. It took awhile, but we soon got to the point where we, meaning me, Ashley, Demyx, and sometimes Axel, were running around doing whatever we wanted. Zexion and Hideo just kind of stood back, shaking their heads with the airs of the vastly superior.

That ended rather abruptly when I found myself alone in an arcade. I headed for one of those helicopter simulation games. I stuck in a few quarters, pressed the start button and pulled the machine over my eyes.

I had a grand old time blowing stuff up for about five minutes before the screen suddenly went dark. I frowned and started to push the machine up again.

But I couldn't move.

I paused in surprise and tried again, but nothing happened. I couldn't move at all. I started to panic when the screen abruptly came alive again.

It took me several moments to process what I saw.

It took me another few moments to reconcile with the fact that it was real.

"Ri… Riku?"

* * *

**A/N: I was gonna end it here, but I thought you guys deserved something special for putting up with me and most of you have been clamoring for Riku so... BEHOLD!**

* * *

He was on the screen, and it felt as though he was standing in front of me. He looked exactly the same as when he'd sealed himself inside Kingdom Hearts. He smiled at me slowly, "Hello, Valerie."

"I… But- you… how?" Words, they escaped me.

"I wish I had time to explain." He said and the feeling of sincerity flooded over me, "But I don't. I need you to do something for me."

"Anything." The word was out of my mouth before I could call it back. He smiled again.

"I need you to take your friends and leave to park right now."

"Okay. I mean, I'll try, but it might take some time to round up all five of them."

"No," He shook his head, "Not the Nobodies, just Hideo and that girl. The Nobodies _must_ stay in the park."

"Wha-? But why? What's going to happen?"

He hesitated for a moment, but then he replied, "The entire park you're standing in right now is a computer program. A 'virtual reality', if you will, the person I'm… working with created it to bring the Nobodies back into our universe."

"Why?"

He sighed in minor annoyance, "You noticed that the heartless showed up as soon as the Nobodies did, right? The heartless can sense their power. If enough heartless learn of your universe and the abundance of hearts in it, or if you fail to kill even one, the invasion might spread there."

"But why can't I come back with them? I want to go back-"

"No!" He said quickly, and I flinched at the strength with which he said it. "It's designed to take them back to the last place they were, which is the Nobodies' stronghold. If their leader got a hold of you? It wouldn't be good to say the least. Besides, someone has to stay and take care of any stray heartless."

"But I-"

"We'll all see each other again." He said, "I promise."

I looked at him for a good while before conceding, searching for any sign he was lying, "Fine."

His expression softened, "I'm sorry I don't have longer. And I'm sorry I can't tell you everything. But you must go. Now."

The world came back around me. I shoved the machine up and bolted out of the arcade. In a stroke of chance, the first person I laid eyes on was Hideo, who was sitting around an umbrella table with Zexion. I called his name, running up to him, "We have to get Ashley and go. Now!"

"What?" he quickly got to his feet, "Why?"

I turned to Zexion, "I have it on good authority that this is all a virtual reality designed to take you guys back where you came from so the heartless can't take over Earth." I explained rapidly, "But Hideo and Ashley and I have to get out of here or we'll go with you guys to the middle of your stronghold and I really, _really_ don't want to meet that 'Superior' guy Demyx was complaining about."

His expression did not waver one time throughout my explanation. When I finished, he asked me one question, "How good is this authority?"

"I'd stake my life on it." I said, a bit surprised.

He nodded curtly, then put two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle that set my ears ringing. It was only a few seconds before Axel rounded the corner of the arcade, followed closely by Ashley and Demyx.

"What's going on?" Axel said, out of breath. Zexion didn't answer, but took Ashley by the wrist and led her over to us.

"Go."

I looked at him, "Zexion-?"

I probably would have come up with something to say if I didn't hear the familiar warping of space time that signaled imminent fighting. I looked around and spotted dozen of dark spots springing to life in the shadows.

The slate-haired man pushed us in the direction of the exit, "I told you to go. We'll hold them off." He called his Lexicon and faced the legions of heartless that had begun to emerge.

"_Why_ are we holding them off?" Axel said, doing the same with his weapon.

"I'll explain later," Zexion replied calmly.

Demyx looked over his shoulder, grinning, "Well, get going!" He addressed all of us, but his eyes were on Ashley.

She took a step forward, "Dem-"

Hideo was the one who got his head on straight first. He shoved me ahead of him and grabbed Ashley's wrist in one hand and summoned a gun to his other. "Move!"

I ran faster than I ever had towards the exit. I couldn't help looking over my shoulder often, knowing that if it got to the point where I couldn't see the Nobodies in the fighting, I'd turn around and go help them, consequences or no.

In the parking lot, we leapt into the car when we saw a hand beginning to emerge from a pool of darkness about the size of a small house.

"A Darkside," I breathed, pressing my nose to the hot window.

Hideo threw the van into reverse, backing up of the Darkside's hand before switching gears and peeling out of the parking lot and, in moments, onto the highway. The second we were on the road, I felt static electricity put all of my hairs on end and shuddered violently.

I glanced back at the theme park. All of the rides were running, full of people. I glimpsed the parking spot and couldn't see an empty space. That was the real Six Flags.

"They're really gone?" Hideo asked, sounding out of breath.

I was silent. Everything had ended so quickly. It was hard to believe they were gone just like that. Were they safe? I hoped so. Even Zexion had shown himself to be a decent person in the end, putting aside his grudge for our prank to help us escape.

"No. Not permanently, at least," I found myself saying. "I have the word of someone trustworthy that we'll see each other again."

* * *

Neassa: There you have it! The end of TWOTDDRMOD! Now, I hereby present you with two things for you to answer in reviews! You know you love me. Smiley face.

**Have ideas for titles of the next story?**

I have failed so epically at naming these past two stories that I figure some input would be helpful. I can't promise that I'll pick something you guys come up with, but it will let me know what you guys are looking for and you never know, I might just pick one of yours.

**Decision time!**

Okay, so it's up to you guys whether the next thing I upload is the sequel to this. I promised myself that I wouldn't upload multiple ongoing stories, but that hasn't stopped me from writing them. I currently have fanfictions for...

Yu-Gi-Oh!

D. N. Angel

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

A **_NEW_** and totally unrelated to this one Kingdom Hearts story!

Harry Potter

Jak and Daxter

Sly Cooper

X-Men

and of course, this undying monster's **_sequel_**.

On some of these, I've written more than others, but it's up to you guys to tell me what you want. I swear, all of these are about forty-seven times better than this story. These have discernible _plot_. Not that I won't make the sequel epic, when I get around to it, but I thought you guys should get a choice. I'm not putting this poll on my profile page because I want to give this power to you, my loyal readers who have read this through to the end. This sounds way too much like a good bye, so I'll just end it here.

Can't wait to here from you!

Please review and GOD BLESS!

~*~Neassa-chan


	22. Epilogue Believe

Hi, all! Here we have the Epilogue for _The Wrath of the DDR Machine O' Doom!_

I'm not going to say much, I'm just going to let you read.

Onward!

* * *

Hideo blinked slowly, like he wasn't quite sure whether speaking and drawing attention to himself would be entirely wise. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision, opening his mouth and asking, "What are you _doing_?"

I'm afraid my answer wasn't very articulate. It involved a lot of squeaking, blubbering, and waving my Nintendo DS around like it was the answer to life itself.

He rolled his eyes at me, "You finally beat 358/2 Days? It took you long enough."

I glared. "It is a very monotonous game."

"Sure." He gestured for me to follow him into the hall, "Come on."

I followed him, but I did so warily, "Where are we going?"

"Out. You haven't left your house in three days."

"Uh, yeah. There's _sunlight_ out there."

He rolled his eyes, "Trust me, I know. Which is why your mom gave me fifty bucks to make you go outside." A wad of cash suddenly appeared in his hand.

"Hey!" I made a grab for it, "If she gave me fifty bucks, I'd have gone outside!"

"No you wouldn't have. Wait, I take it back. You would have gone outside for exactly as long as it takes to walk to my house, raid my fridge, and hide in my basement."

I couldn't really deny that. "I thought I was being sneaky."

"You failed."

I gave him a shove, but followed him out into the light anyway.

* * *

We ended up getting sodas and driving out to a tiny railway station that was only in use during the holidays. We parked behind the large building, let down the tailgate, and sat in the bed of my truck.

Yeah, my truck. My sixteenth birthday had come and gone and, with the school year approaching, so had the purchase of the fifteen year old truck.

We sat in the truckbed for a while, talking about the inane things we always did, then lapsed into silence for quite some time.

The sun dipped completely below the horizon and stars began to slowly overtake the rainbow of colors in the sky before I spoke, "Do you ever wonder if we're crazy?"

Hideo looked at me, but didn't reply. He simply sat and waited for me to continue.

"This," I fingered a strand of my hair, which had never returned to its natural brown hue, "Kingdom Hearts? Don't you ever find yourself wondering if we aren't insane? Did we go the places we think we went, meet the people we thought we met? Did Axel and Demyx and Zexion really come to my house and cause mayhem for a week? Did we suffer some kind of mass hallucination or something that just made us believe everything happened the way we imagine?"

"Of course I wonder."

He wasn't looking at me, but at the stars. "Is every single star up there another world? Is our world's science lost to us? Does it lie? Do we have it because, somewhere in the past, we screwed up and lost the connection that lets us understand the uncertainties of magic? And, you and I, are we crazy for believing we've seen some of those outside worlds? Did Will, Saft, Rachel, and Ashley gain that connection, only to lose it again? Why do we two still have it after forgetting it entirely for a whole year?"

He then turned to me and did something very strange. He smiled. "But then, after tossing and turning every night over those questions, I decided I didn't care."

When he didn't continue, I had to ask, "You don't care?"

"No. I don't. Four years ago, I woke up in a hospital room with you and two boys. We knew each other's names. We played a card game like we'd been friends forever, even though we'd never met before in this world. There's a tear in your DDR mat. I know how to shoot a gun. I don't feel safe going into amusement parks. Even if we're completely mad, these things are true. And the only thing that explains them all _is_ completely mad, so why fight it? We haven't lost our memories or given up on them, so we have to believe that there's a reason for that. That someday, somehow, our realities will be the ones we live."

We sat there, staring at the inky black sky, the blackness broken by tiny pinpricks of light that were either fantastic other worlds or random groupings of fire and gas.

And I knew which reality I'd rather live.

"You know," I told Hideo, taking off my drink's lid to get at the ice. "That's the most I've ever heard you talk. Frankly, it was a little out of character."

"Hn."

I dropped a handful of ice down his shirt and he positively _seized_. I leapt over the side of the truck bed and around to the driver's side door, diving in and jabbing at the locking mechanism for all I was worth.

By the time I notice he hadn't chased me, he'd already slid the back window open, reached through, and rubbed a handful of ice into my hair.

And we played like we were kids again, without having to worry about ourselves and our minds. We did what we liked because it was fun and harmless and we remembered that feeling and clung to it.

Maybe that was why we still believed. Maybe it takes a childlike heart to believe in magic, whether that mindset is natural or clung to through adolescent and teenage years out of the fear that losing it will mean one has nothing.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But I decided, half soaked and planning my revenge, that I was with Hideo and I didn't care. Because believing was believing and all that mattered was that we kept doing it. The belief, the faith, the magic, was all what living felt like.

And if it came down to split realities, the world I lived in and the mad world I was accused of, I would take the middle path- the one to magic.

And I'd never stop believing.

* * *

And here we are, friends. There are many things I have to say to you.

First off, thank you for all of your support over the past seven (WOW) years. Thanks to the overwhelmingly positive support on these stories, I have self-confidence I never would have had otherwise. I kept writing and now I have a direction I want my life to go in.

Second off, for those of you panicking, no, this isn't goodbye. This is more of a notice, lol. I've thought long and hard about the sequel to this story and have come to a conclusion: the odds of me writing a sequel to this story are roughly equivalent to the odds of me being struck by lightning.

However.

That is not to say I'm leaving you guys high and dry. For several years now, I've been considering re-writing this whole series. My writing style has changed _drastically_ from when I first started writing. The most marked difference is my ability to recognize cliche and _avoid_ it. *thinks of YNKWWH and cringes*

My style now is still heavily rooted in humor (don't worry, I'm not suddenly going to start writing angst), but there are also thick veins of drama in it. And I'm not talking romantic drama, I _hate _romantic drama. Just very intense plot. Another difference is that I've actually gained a slight ability to write the aforementioned things.

Like I said, I've been considering this for a while, but the major tipping point was the fact that I've beaten both Birth By Sleep and 358/2 Days in the last week. And Kingdom Hearts is a much more complicated fandom than my twelve-year-old self anticipated or knew how to deal with.

That said, I'm going to be taking a bit of a hiatus. Actually, that's a lie, I'm probably going to start writing the second I submit this to ffdotnet, but I'm not going to torture you guys with ridiculously spaced out updates any more. I swore after I posted TWOTDDRMOD that I would never post a story again unless it was finished because the ridiculous gaps just aren't fair to you guys. And for those of you reading Stockholm Syndrome, that does mean the story is finished, I've even started a sequel for it.

This means that you may not hear from me on the Kingdom Hearts front for a while, but I have by no means left it. When I come back, some names may be different, the story will be radically different, but better, I promise. The main character will be similar and odds are high that Hideo will continue to grace the story with his presence, unless his creator doesn't want him too.

For any of you wondering why (a) your OC didn't make it into the story or (b) why your OC didn't stay in the story, I can answer your grievances. The OCs that didn't make it into the story - this is not because I didn't like your OC or you personally. That is not it at all, I just can't put everyone's characters into the story and I am terrible at writing multiple original characters all at the same time. That is not one of my talents. If you're wondering why your OC didn't stay in the story, it's for much the same reason. I don't want to have a character in the story and then completely forget their existence. That isn't fair to anyone.

Hideo is still in the story because, not only do I love writing him, not only is he so easy to write that he practically writes himself, but his creator, Eternal Insomnia, is a dear friend of mine who was among my very first reviewers and our friendship has just gotten stronger so that, even after all this time, I feel like having this tiny tribute to him in my stories more an honor than a burden.

Okay so, to sum up. I love you guys. Probably not going to write a sequel for this, but will go back, rewrite everything and it will be so awesome that you won't care, even if you don't hear from me for a while in the realm of Kingdom Hearts.

And, due to overwhelming demand and requests and the fact that I'm _still_ getting reviews on them after all this time, I'm going to leave the original two stories up. I hate them soooo much (it's a love hate relationship. I love them, but hate how terribly they're written) and I cringe to think that anyone could behold so much suckage and know that I wrote it, but then I remember how man of you have written and told me my stories cheered you up and decide that, even if it makes me uncomfortable, if it makes you laugh, it's worth it.

That, and going back and reading the reviews is good for my self esteem.

Alright, I guess that's it, everyone. Hopefully you'll see me again sooner rather than later and, if you're suffering from withdrawl from my stories, why not go check out Stockholm Syndrome, the Sly Cooper story I have up? It's much better written than this and it's a really fun read.

GOD BLESS!

~*~Neassa


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